I have a dell inspiron 1501. One min it was working fine then I got a white screen. I shut it off and tried to restart it. I can hear the fan and see the power light and the activity light on the cd rom blinking, but I get nothing on the screen... any suggestions

Any chance still in warranty?

-what you can try is to remove AC pwr and try to start with just the battery

-try to start with just the AC and the battery removed

-attach an exteranl monitor to see if that will work, if external works, it would indicate issue with monitor

Also would advice doing a hard reset. Pull the batt. Out and unplug the laptop from the adapter. Press and hold the power button down for 10 to 15 seconds and then try putting the batt back in and plugging the adapter back in. seahwk83's advice is great for narrowing down the bad component.