Dell Inspiron 531 Hangs on Booting

You may have miss judged the bad componet. What light on your diagnostic lights are illuminated?

I belive the power supply is ok, you replaced the motherboard so let assume that is not it either, as well as the video card. That leaves the memory or harddrives/optical drives.

Heres whay you should do

1. check the diagnostic lights

2. remove the ram sticks. power on the system then again look at the lights and listen for beeps. Replace the ram sticks one at a time into slot #1 and try to boot the system. pull the first one out and repeat again with all the remaining ram sticks. If still no difference then put all the ram back in and unplug the power going to all the drives. and try to boot again.

Other than the power on switch and back of the power supply, are there more diagnostic lights I missed?

The only lights I can find on the computer is the power on switch which remains Amber in color on power on and the back of the power supply that stays green.

I replaced each memory stick each power on cycle. No changes.

I removed the disk drive and DVD drive power on power up and no changes.

It appears that the computer cannot go to the next step in the power up. There is blue light flicker on the disk drive light when you push the power switch but nothing else on the drive light appears. No beeps at all. Nothing on the display appears. It looks like it cannot get pass the BIOS during startup. Thanks for the suggestions......any thing else?

I still have not been able to resolve my startup issue. Only replaced the battery at this point. I don't want to spend any more money unless someone comes up with a good suggestion. Any one in the Dell community who has any ideas?

If you are still seeing a amber powerlight then either the supply is bad or some componet is loading it down. Remove everything from the system board with the exception of the CPU. disconnect the power connectors on all your drives.

Power on the system. Note the color and condition of the powerbutton light. Listen for beeps, Listen for the fans to spin up. If the fans spin up, the light is still amber and no beeps the motherbord is shot.

I removed all of the componets and turned on power, light is amber. Fans spinning but no beeps. I had already replaced the motherboard when the issues began. I guess there is a chance that I was shipped another bad motherboard. If that is the case, I could be looking for other issues and just have two bad motherboards.

Is there any other way to test the motherboard(s) before I go try and get the second one replaced again?

Thanks for the suggestions.

There is none that I know of.  IF you got the board from Dell it will come with a 90 day warranty

I called about the motherboard and it was tested before it was shipped. They are suggesting it might be the power supply since per Davet50 suggestion of removing everything from the board and see if you get the computer to beep or get further in the startup. If adding the components one at time does not change anything, then it boils down to motherboard or powersupply.

I guess I will price a power supply. 

I also have this same problem when booting up no beeps and nothing on display i have replaced motherboard and psu and get the sameproblem

and every1 i have taked to dont know what else to do and suggestions?

I have replaced every component in the computer except the hard drive. I am looking for a computer store to see if they can take a look and make suggestions. It is getting to the point that the repair is costing more then computer is worth. Or better stated, I have rebuilt the computer with all new components. However, I am still motivated to fix it.

Did your computer have booting problems immediately or did you see other issues before the boot problem occurred?

Honestly, sounds like your power supply is faulty. try to feel if its blowing hot air (it has a fan right? I replaced mine so long ago I cant remember). I'd say try a bigger power supply just in case. Could also be the CPU if you havent tried a different one, but I'm willing to bet the PSU.

And what did they do to fix it if you would share that with us

Sorry it took so long and so much to fix.  What did Staples say was wrong?

Finally gave up and took it to Staples. Fixed it in a day for $75. I would recommend Staples before dumping alot of money into guessing.

The guy at Staples said he went through a number of steps that they have created to install a new motherboard (which I replaced). They flashed the bios, ran a number of tests, and made the point of making sure the pins on the processor when installing on the new motherboard were straight. I guess you need to be very careful when installing the processor on the board as well as other components. He did not find anything obvious but removed all components and reinstalled using their steps and tests. If I had to do it all over again, I would have probably paid the $75 to Staples to figure out what was wrong before ordering my motherboard, power supply, and video card. My guess it was the motherboard and I installed something wrong when I reassembled. Anyway, all is good and the computer works great.