As a continuation to my previous post (see above). After removing and replacing the coin cell battery, the laptop started booting again. (not that I did like to this again, as I had to remove the keyboard).
Also, Grub is once again able to count down and boot automatically. [...] FYI: Turns out that Dell has a BIOS diagnostics tool for download (works as a bootable ISO). I would like to suggest to folks with this problem, that are still able to boot, to try using it; in order to help diagnose this. I'll try it if grub's countdown stops again. -- Ubuntu corrupts real time clock on some dell laptops https://launchpad.net/bugs/43745 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
