- Oct 23, 2000
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I have a problem with two Dell Dimension 5150 desktop computers in one of my offices. I'll call them PC1 and PC2.
The user of PC1 reported Monday morning that she was not able to get her computer to turn on after turning it off for the weekend. The power button blinks amber every 2 seconds but the system does not even attempt to turn on when the button is pressed. Knowing that the 5150 has an issue with flaky power buttons, I went in expecting to just have to reset the CMOS and the system would boot normally again (this has happened a few times to both machines in the past).
However, I could not get the computer to turn on no matter what I tried, including disconnecting all peripherals, drives, and the PCIE video card. I didn't have time to do any more troubleshooting yesterday before another appointment so I came back in today to try and fix the problem.
Both computers are out of warranty, so Dell won't even talk to me to troubleshoot the problem.
To attempt to narrow down the cause of the failure so that I can tell Dell which part(s) to send me, I tried the parts from PC2 (previously working) in PC1 and the parts from PC1 in PC2 one at a time. I swapped the power supply, RAM, hard drive, CD drive, CPU, video card, and IDE/SATA cables. However, regardless of the hardware configurations and swaps I tried, I could not get PC1 to boot with the CPU or power supply from PC1, and I could not get PC2 to boot with any parts from PC1. Now, after putting all of the parts back in their original cases, PC1 still will not boot (not a surprise) and PC2 also will not turn on.
I suspect that the power supply failed in PC1 and took out the motherboard and CPU, and then either the PSU or CPU from PC1 killed the motherboard in PC2 when I tried them there, but I can't think of any way to prove it or to determine which of the parts in either system are still good. (In case you are wondering, I told the office owner that this might happen when I swapped parts, but he said to try it anyway.)
Personally, I'd rather just get them new computers, but adding in the cost of upgrading to Windows XP Pro from Vista (some of the software they use will not work in Vista and Dell won't ship machines with XP any more), it would be significantly more expensive than just replacing a few parts in the old machines. However, since they aren't under warranty, I don't want to randomly buy parts and hope they will work. If you have any suggestions of what I can do to verify which part(s) have failed so that they can be replaced, I would appreciate it.
The user of PC1 reported Monday morning that she was not able to get her computer to turn on after turning it off for the weekend. The power button blinks amber every 2 seconds but the system does not even attempt to turn on when the button is pressed. Knowing that the 5150 has an issue with flaky power buttons, I went in expecting to just have to reset the CMOS and the system would boot normally again (this has happened a few times to both machines in the past).
However, I could not get the computer to turn on no matter what I tried, including disconnecting all peripherals, drives, and the PCIE video card. I didn't have time to do any more troubleshooting yesterday before another appointment so I came back in today to try and fix the problem.
Both computers are out of warranty, so Dell won't even talk to me to troubleshoot the problem.
To attempt to narrow down the cause of the failure so that I can tell Dell which part(s) to send me, I tried the parts from PC2 (previously working) in PC1 and the parts from PC1 in PC2 one at a time. I swapped the power supply, RAM, hard drive, CD drive, CPU, video card, and IDE/SATA cables. However, regardless of the hardware configurations and swaps I tried, I could not get PC1 to boot with the CPU or power supply from PC1, and I could not get PC2 to boot with any parts from PC1. Now, after putting all of the parts back in their original cases, PC1 still will not boot (not a surprise) and PC2 also will not turn on.
I suspect that the power supply failed in PC1 and took out the motherboard and CPU, and then either the PSU or CPU from PC1 killed the motherboard in PC2 when I tried them there, but I can't think of any way to prove it or to determine which of the parts in either system are still good. (In case you are wondering, I told the office owner that this might happen when I swapped parts, but he said to try it anyway.)
Personally, I'd rather just get them new computers, but adding in the cost of upgrading to Windows XP Pro from Vista (some of the software they use will not work in Vista and Dell won't ship machines with XP any more), it would be significantly more expensive than just replacing a few parts in the old machines. However, since they aren't under warranty, I don't want to randomly buy parts and hope they will work. If you have any suggestions of what I can do to verify which part(s) have failed so that they can be replaced, I would appreciate it.