It this Dell Studio XPS 1640 worth being repaired?

Last week I was given a Dell Studio XPS 1640 laptop computer by a friend of mine. He told me that the computer was from a person who had removed the HDD for reasons of confidentiality. Without the HDD, the computer should give me some sign of life when powered on. It does not. When I power it up, nothing happens except that the Volume Up, Mute and Volume Down LEDs blink and they blink regularly (once every second) until I power it down. Apart from these blinking LEDs, the computer is dead (no fan either). I was given the computer and I am ready to put a new HDD in it with Windows 7 (I have a license) but, before I do that, I would like to find out if surprises are on the way. I am a newbie with hardware problems.

Thank for any help.