[mrcaptainbob]

After fussing with it a while, it started talking to us! Every key we touched was dexcribed over the speakers. Still nothing but a black screen. Aafter following Dell's suggestions of unplugging/plugging and such, I managed to get it to safe mode with the F3 key. Also managed to get it back to a known restore point. It did what it was supposed to, but then, on reboot, it went back to the black screen again. I'll reseat all the boards tomorrow. If that doesn't help, then a call to Dell will be in order.....