Aurora R7 will not power on. Have performed a lot of troubleshooting.

Question

Hello Dell Community,

I am currently out of ideas and would appreciate any help. First off, I'm a computer illiterate, so I'm doing my best to understand computer parts and names. Please excuse anything mentioned that doesn't make sense . I purchased my Aurora R7 in May 2018, and the PC wont turn on anymore on 3/11/2021. Currently out of warranty, and I was hoping to get it repaired by some basic troubleshooting. I normally use the PC for gaming, some light browsing and watching youtube, and I always shut down the PC through the start menu when I'm done with the computer.

I've been doing a lot of research and consulting help from my internet friends, but we're at a point where I don't know what else to do.

Here are the following things I've performed and tried to do, but I will first post the troubleshooting I've done to get some sort of a response out of the computer:

1. The first thing I've done from troubleshooting is to hard reset, unplug the power cord and made sure my outlet worked fine. It had booted to windows 10, but as soon as I move my mouse to continue my regular activity, the computer restarted itself, and I was faced with a blue screen stating that windows did not shut down properly, so my only option was to restart. After a few loops, it went to diagnostics, and lastly, spat out a QR code: https://imgur.com/a/a1umqFL There was no other option but to shut down from this point.

2. The second thing I've done to get the computer to get some sort of a response was to leave the computer unplugged, with the CMOS battery removed and had it sat out for 2 nights before I had a chance to purchase a new CMOS battery. When I popped the brand new CMOS battery in and plugged in the power cord, I got a response, and it even turned on with the fans running for about 3 seconds. I did not catch if any amber lights were flashing as found on other discussions. After that, the computer will not respond.

3. The last time I got a response was when I had a friend walk me through troubleshooting from helping along with research. I was told to disconnect cables from the motherboard, basically anything that powers up the computer, and then was told to move some blue caps over the jumper pins (no idea what that is, but it sits near the the SSD chambers) and perform a power drain. When I plugged everything back in, I finally got a signal. All fans were running, and I even see amber lights (5 blinks between intervals). However, I was unable to plug in a monitor or other peripherals, so I had to shut down the system to try again. Once I've plugged in the remaining peripherals, the computer stopped responding.

*Also to state, I have tried to push the button next to the power cord on the PSU. All fans except the PSU fan were running at this time.

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The following were troubleshooting that I've tried to do that did not help at all:

A. I've purchased a brand new power cord because I noticed a burn mark on the plug on the old cord. The computer has no response in spite of this change.

B. I've tried to remove parts from the PC: RAMS, GPU, SSD, HDD, and performed a power drain as I plug each part back to see if it would respond to any of these plugged in one at a time, but I got nothing.

C. I've removed most of the cables from the motherboard (except wifi card), removed GPU, and RAMS, removed the CMOS battery, performed a battery drain, and made sure all cards, and cords were re-seated snugly back to its place. No response whatsoever after the power plug goes back in. Again, the button next to the power cord on the PSU had all fans except the PSU functional.

D. The most recent change was, I had another friend who helped look into a possible new PSU that I've purchased from Amazon: EVGA Supernova P2 650w. The PSU came in yesterday, but after giving 3 tries of plugging and unplugging cables, the computer did not respond. I finally unplugged all cables and ran a CPU / Motherboard only test with the PSU. Computer wont respond at all.

As this is starting to get complicated, and frustrating, I'm out of ideas. If there's anything else I might have overlooked, I'd appreciate any responses / extra help. Thank you for reading.

r72019 · Accepted Answer

If you look closely at the boxes you will also see the corners don't match up between the VGA cable and the motherboard slot to try to stop people from doing this.

r72019 · Accepted Answer

That is exactly what I said in my earlier post. The VGA 6+2 PIN cable does NOT go to GPU_PWR.

There wires are currently feeding into the wrong slots on the motherboard.

That setup could potentially damage the motherboard. The GPU PWR header uses non standard wiring. It does not accept a pcie 6+2.

You need an EPS 12V (4+4) cable there. You use 4 or 8 PINS depending on the GPU. If you only had 4 connected you probably had the 460w dell delta or huntkey oem PSU.

Solareptus · Answer

I had to remove the screenshot from the link above due to disclosure of service tag, but here is the adjust screenshot:

r72019 · Answer

The error message is saying there's a problem with the RAM.

Have you tried putting it back to OEM configuration, including the jumper pins, and booting with only 1 RAM stick? If you have 2 sticks, try it with each one. Also try it in a different slot.

Are these OEM sticks or were they upgraded?

r72019 · Answer

How were you able to fully connect the EVGA 650W P2 to the R7?

This one here? https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Supernova-Platinum-Warranty-220-P2-0650-X1/dp/B010HWDPKW

That PSU doesn't even come with all the minimally required cables for the R7 to boot. You would need to remove the sleeving and/or split/modify one of the existing cables to get the R7 to boot using that PSU.

r72019 · Answer

It's hard to say just plain yes/no. For example I have a board where the power button will do nothing, no lights/fans, if RAM slot 1 is left unoccupied. Any other configuration everything works fine. 1, 2, 3 or 4 sticks as long as slot 1 is occupied.

Anyway, I do know the R7 will not boot without GPU_PWR connected. Doesn't matter if no GPU or add in card is connected. I can't remember though if it just black screens or power button doesn't work at all if the gpu pwr header is left empty though I thought it was the latter. I wouldn't necessairily say the PSU is /was the issue though. Especially with the RAM error message.

I wouldn't buy a new SSD. Memory would usually be RAM, but GPU also has memory. If you can boot again you can run the built in diagnostics, F12 on boot. Sure, it may be a motherboard or RAM issue.

I'd also be concerned about the burn marks and there being some incident that damaged something inside.

Solareptus · Answer

Thank you for your response.I have already attempted to power up with 1 OEM stick at a time. Nothing happened. They were both OEM sticks and done before I went out to change parts. I have not purchased anything other than the PSU / Power Cord / CMOS battery up until now, unless the 2.5 Crucial SSD counts?In terms of that PSU, that is the one I've picked up, but the thing is, if I plugged in a working PSU only to the Motherboard and CPU and still nothing happened, wouldn't that be a motherboard issue?

r72019 · Answer

Also, FYI, the R7 will not boot if the GPU_PWR header is left disconnected.  That is the 8 PIN connector near the top GPU slot.

r72019 · Answer

The photo on amazon only shows only 1 EPS 12V 8 PIN (4+4) cable (labeled CPU on the EVGA cable) so it wasn't clear to me what you would have plugged into the Aurora R7 8 PIN GPU_PWR header. That is nonstandard wiring, normally you'd expect a PCIe 8 PIN (6+2) power cable (labeled VGA on the EVGA cable) to go in there, but that would damage the board.

But if you had 2 EPS cables in the box then nevermind and sorry for any confusion.

Solareptus · Answer

The burn marks on the original cable was on one of the prongs pictured here:

I will attempt to work with the OEM RAM sticks individually to try to allocate the problem, but in terms of how I was able to put the system together with the replacement PSU I've purchased, the PSU came with enough cables for me to plug into my R7, so I was confused what you meant about the PSU coming with the minimal required cables to hook up to my system, or even modifying them. Here are all the parts that came with the PSU:

Solareptus · Answer

Hello, Thank you for responding to me.

I've taken some pictures of what I have going right now. Please excuse the mess of the cables since I have the EVGA PSU sitting next to the tower for now. My system came with Nvidia GeForce 1060 at the time, so it only has a 6 pin:

To add some additional info that I've learned, the GPU_PWR pin spot only runs on 4 pins, as the OEM connector itself has verified this:

markburv · Answer

@r72019 But if you had 2 EPS cables in the box then nevermind and sorry for any confusion. The 8pin GPU is an EPS cable? Did you see 2 EPS cables on that picture of the GPU box label from @Solareptus ? Below is my R8 with original 850W PSU, it also has the 8pin GPU_PWR (yellow wires) connected between the GPU and the silver VRM heatsink that is on the left of the CPU cooling, unlike recent machines that do not have GPU_PWR. Solareptus, can you determine which cable you have plugged in there (the GPU_PWR) and to which socket on the PSU is it connected? Maybe you can also take a photo of the GPU_PWR like this

Solareptus · Answer

I had forgotten to snap a picture of the cables plugged into the EVGA PSU sockets. I don't think I've plugged them into the wrong sockets as each one were labelled as shown:

markburv · Answer

Correction, link here

r72019 · Answer

Yes, they are helpful. And also the photo shows only one CPU slot on the back of the PSU, which goes to my other comment that this PSU doesn't contain all the required cables needed to boot without modification.

You need one for the CPU header and a second for the nonstandard GPU PWR header.

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Aurora R7 will not power on. Have performed a lot of troubleshooting.

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