Dell Boot Problem

[2poopd2pop]

Dell XPS 800, was working perfectly before a move.

Need your help with diagnosis, here are the symptoms, when turning it
on:

green power light comes on, hard disk normal sounds for about 1-2
seconds.

No beeps, blank screen (not even a cursor).

Box will then not turn off at front power switch UNLESS I hold it for
7-8 seconds, then powers off.

Looked inside and found no obvious signs of damage or loose boards.

Any ideas? (Don't suggest dell support they did not reply to my inquiry).

 

[S.Lewis]

Dell XPS 800, was working perfectly before a move.

Need your help with diagnosis, here are the symptoms, when turning it
on:

green power light comes on, hard disk normal sounds for about 1-2
seconds.

No beeps, blank screen (not even a cursor).

Box will then not turn off at front power switch UNLESS I hold it for
7-8 seconds, then powers off.

Looked inside and found no obvious signs of damage or loose boards.

Any ideas? (Don't suggest dell support they did not reply to my inquiry).

Do you mean an old beige XPS T800? Look at the LED codes on back, which can
be found here:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dkub/codemess.htm

 

[Joe]

It won't turn off because the power down driver hasn't been loaded, I would
point to a mother board fault. A loose connection somewhere would point to
this fault as well, try pushing every connection into place. If this doesn't
work try resetting the BIOS, to do this check your motherboard manual. It
will involve moving a jumper round on some pins, turning on the computer
resetting the jumper then restarting it.

 

[2poopd2popNOT]

Wow, forgot all about those, thanks, will have a look and come back.

 

[2poopd2popNOT]

It won't turn off because the power down driver hasn't been loaded, I
would point to a mother board fault. A loose connection somewhere
would point to this fault as well, try pushing every connection into
place. If this doesn't work try resetting the BIOS, to do this check
your motherboard manual. It will involve moving a jumper round on some
pins, turning on the computer resetting the jumper then restarting it.

Thanks for the reply. There is one loose wire with a 1 cm X 1 cm white
one female pinjack connector that goes to (i think, hard to see) the
power supply fan. I don't know if this was loose before the move. There
are two connectors on the board labeled power CTRL/RPM Fan 1 and Fan 2,
but I don't think these are the mating connectors because one of them
has a 3 wire connector and the other also has 3 pins and the loose wire
only has one pin.

I don't have the MB manual, but I may be able to download it from Dell
site, have to check.

 

[History]

Won't be whats stopping your computer booting up, but might as well hook it
up. The 3rd pin is for determining the fans speed, one is + the other -
check your mother board manual before frying the mother board.

 

[Jay B]

i suppose if the fan is not on, then the cpu could overheat quickly,
causing it to shutoff to save itself.

the lights on the back are the next thing to look at.

 

[Joe]

A computer will boot fine into windows with no fan on the processor, its
when you start doing things it overheats and shuts down.

 

[kony]

A computer will boot fine into windows with no fan on the processor, its
when you start doing things it overheats and shuts down.

That's mostly true, but it's more a matter of time.

From a cold/off state, it takes awhile for the heatsink to
warm up. The amount of time it takes is enough to "usually"
boot windows, but if it were just sitting idle, even with
ACPI power management cooling it, a few minutes later it'll
likely be too hot except for a few of the CPUs specifically
designed to be very low power or in a chassis meant to
passively cool the CPU.

 

[2poopd2popNOT]

It won't turn off because the power down driver hasn't been loaded, I
would point to a mother board fault. A loose connection somewhere
would point to this fault as well, try pushing every connection into
place. If this doesn't work try resetting the BIOS, to do this check
your motherboard manual. It will involve moving a jumper round on some
pins, turning on the computer resetting the jumper then restarting it.

Ok, on the bios suggestion, thanks, but how does this relate to the
diagnostic light error I am getting which dell says to "reseat CPU"
(remove and reinstall)? Why do you think that resetting the bios will
help?

 

[Paul Knudsen]

Dell XPS 800, was working perfectly before a move.

Take it the Dell is out of warranty? You might have a claim vs. your
movers, but probably won't get much, if anything.

Spring for a new machine, and get a drive cage so you can read your
old hard drive.

 

[alien]

A computer will boot fine into windows with no fan on the processor, its
when you start doing things it overheats and shuts down.

I have an eMachine that wouldn't boot because of a slowly spinning cpu fan.
Only ran for about 3-4 seconds then shut off. Never came close to making it
to windows. Replacing the fan fixed it.

alien