Alpha i3 lighting up and not booting

Question

My son recently bought an Alpha i3 desktop from the pawn shop. It was in excellent condition still having the plastic on the outside. He has used it a couple of months not and this morning when he got up to use the computer, he turned it on and there were lights on the alpha power button, lights on his aftermarket keyboard, and a light on the power cord. He could hear the fan turn on, but there was nothing else. The monitor shows no signal.

We have powered down a couple of times, held the power button to do a power drain, changed HDMI cords to make sure it wasn't the cord itself, changed the location and used a different power outlet all together, and used a different monitor/TV.

The only thing he has done to the computer since he has had it was upgrade to Windows 10 and played games through Steam and XBox Live. He is not a heavy gamer...only uses it an hour or so a day.

I have very little knowledge of computers. I can get around a bit and have worked on my own computer, but I do not have any real solid hard core knowledge.

I would appreciate any help you can offer. This is the first time I have posted to this site. We have been reading for quite a while this morning to see if there was anything I could find, but I just haven't found anything.

Eimy_B · Answer

Hi, Does the power button has flashing lights? If does, how many? Those are diagnostic indicators. Let me know!

zero11534 · Answer

I do not work for Dell however I have 3 of these machines one i7 for me and two i3 models for my kids. Only mine seems to experience this same issue your son is facing, which sounds to me to be the BIOS/CMOS battery failure problem. If you see the Alien head blink yellow 5 times at startup than do nothing this is probably the problem.

The easiest solution so far with out tech ability is to unplug the POWER BRICK, both from the wall and the machine. Wait apx 10 mins and plug it back into the Wall and Machine. This should drop out all power on the machine and does a rest (does not rest the Windows OS). You shall need to hit the Tap F2 button once the screen loads (you will have choices) once in the BIOS just exit and save.

The machine should load right up. This could occur a lot or not again. Do NOT hard shut down this machine, during game loading etc. There are guides for the battery to remove it but Dell has yet to provide an exact part# to replace.

On a side not once fixed you may want to run a diagnostic software on the machine to check the hardware for proper functionally, as the hard drive, ram or Motherboard, could also be dying which could cause this same issue. I hope this helps and you shall find Dell is not much support for the USED consoles, which is a shame because they are great little Windows machines for the price.

Holman4Computer · Answer

The power button does not flash.

We did have a storm in our area that knocked out the power. Although the computer was plugged up to a surge protector, the computer has not worked since that time.

The yellow light is only shown when I first push the power button but immediately turns blue. The fans are both working. There is a light on the back of the box (shaped like a cylinder) that flashes when we turn it on. It sounds as though something is working, but there is no signal to our TV. We use a TV as the monitor so the monitor is attached my an HDMI cord which in turn also carries the sound. We do not have an option of any other external speakers here to test to see if there is any sort of sound when we turn it on. We have tried 2 different tvs and 2 different HDMI cords. We also have tested the HDMI on his XBox and it worked fine.

The power cord blue ring is lighting up when plugged in.

I hope this information helps. If there is anything else more specific that I can answer, please let me know. I really appreciate you help.

Holman4Computer · Answer

Update....we removed the hard drive this afternoon to eliminate the hard drive being the issue and the hard drive is fine.  When I replugged it in, it had the 5 yellow lights, but after unplugging the block for a while and replugging it....it is back to just the same as before.

Eimy_B · Answer

Can you please send me a PM with the service tag

Holman4Computer · Answer

I do not have a service tag.  We do not have a warranty with the machine because we purchased the machine used about 6 weeks ago.  That is why I thought I would ask the community to see if there is any hope of us figuring it out.

Eimy_B · Answer

Try a CMOS (coin cell battery) reset, click here to watch a video that will show you how to do it.

Holman4Computer · Answer

I apologize for my lack of knowledge. I did find a service tag s/n (2yc0422) express service code. However, we were not the original owners.

One other thing we discovered is that the HDMI port that the computer was plugged into on the TV was also fried. Is it possible it is just the HDMI port and that is the reason there is no signal but we do hear what I think is the processor? Is there a way of attaching a monitor to the computer without HDMI? We are just trying any last ditch efforts before getting rid of it.

We have also considered selling it on EBay for parts. Can anyone direct me as to what we should remove from the hard drive in order to get rid of his information or how to actually do that? I do have a SATA case that I can attach the hard drive to.

Eimy_B · Answer

Make sure you're using the HDMI out port and NOT the HDMI in port, there is no other connection to the monitor. But if the port is fried you can replace the motherboard. Did you reset the CMOS?

Holman4Computer · Answer

We did make sure the HDMI out port was being used.  We were able to access the CMOS battery, but we did not have a new battery so we only removed it and had to put it back in because of lack of battery.

Eimy_B · Answer

If the issue persists after the CMOS reset, you can buy the motherboard (amazon, ebay) and replace the part.

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Alpha i3 lighting up and not booting

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