it can make a nice portable bench for hanging out in the park, or a lap tray for rolling joints, or for target practicing your new bb gun
If you've got discs with it, wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. This will set everything right and it won't behave like this. No discs? Borrow a friends XP disc, and use your number on the bottom of Laptop (It's a like-for-like thing: if it has an XP home sticker, you need an XP Home disc, same for Pro and the appropriate versions of Media centre). Then, hit the Dell website and download the latest drivers for it.
I haven't even hear of that type before. All Dells are crap anyway, but there's definitely something wrong with the hardware.
Get a charger then...?