My laptop powers on with a blank white screen then shuts off?

Hello all. I have a Dell Latitude CPx and am having a problem. Up until a few days ago, my laptop had been running fine and then it decided to take a dump on me. I go to power it on and a blank white screen comes on, then about three seconds later the laptop shuts off. It repeats this process on its own until I pull the battery out because the power button wont let me shut if off. So I am here to ask for help or if any of you can point me in the right direction as to where I can go to get this fixed or even know what this is. Im guessing its a hardware issue, but I have not made any hardware changes so I would assume that that is not the issue. Thanks in advance.

Damian
October 2005