Bummer to the Max!

My computer went out last night.  Not on a date or anything -- it just clicked off and that was all she wrote!

I had been downstairs watching television until about 10:30.  The computer had been on all day, plugged into the adapter/charger, but with the lid closed most of the time -- so, basically it was hibernating.  I have it on a stand that has a fan that blows air up its bottom side (oooh, that sounds so bad) to keep it from overheating.  In the early days of using this laptop, it would overheat and shut itself off, so that's when I got the stand with the built in fan.  But, in those early days, I was always able to start it up again.  Not this time.

There is no response whatsoever when I push the button to turn it on.  Luckily, I have this computer (that I'm on now) that I bought for Wayne about a year and a half ago.  It isn't nearly as nice as mine, though; not built for speed.  Doing jigsaw puzzles on this one is frustratingly slow. 

Anyway -- when I brought Wayne's computer up here last night to google my problem, one of the suggestions was that it might be dirty.  What?  Dust in my house?  You must be joking!  Or not -- there's plenty of dust here.  I watched a video showing how simple it is to just take out some screws, remove the case, blow it all out, check for any loose connections and then put it all back together again -- and then, voilá (I don't know how to put a thing over the "a" here -- never mind -- I just googled "special characters" and found what I needed) it might turn on! 

Well, I did remove all the screws, but I wasn't able to remove the case.  I hope that cleaning is all it needs, but it seems ominous that it won't start after 18 hours of sitting.  I also read that the battery adapter/charger might have gone bad.  I don't really think that's what happened, though.  I do have two of the battery adapter/chargers, so just in case I plugged the other one in.  No dice.

Another suggestion was that the motherboard might be fried.  That sounds painful.  But, would that make it not turn on?  Maybe I need to google "my dell computer won't turn on."

Whatever it is, I need it to work!  And soon!  This computer doesn't even have Word or Excel on it.  Gaah!