Desktops General - Read Only

[DonClemons]

Dell Precision T5400

Xeon E5450 x2

32 GB Ram

Windows 7 Pro

1 TB Seagate primary drive

2 TB WD backup drive

DVD Rewritable

Floppy

XFX Radeon HD 7850 2GB

PCI Firewire card

The last few days it would shut down randomly mostly when watching Youtube videos. I had recently upgraded my video driver so rolled that back yesterday. This morning when I got up it was off, I leave it running all the time so I knew it had shut down again. I hit the power button, the power came on for a couple of seconds then shut back off. I tried several times with the same result. No beeps and I couldn't tell what the diagnostic lights were doing as you will see in the video. I hit the power supply test button on the back and the LED was green indicating no power supply problem. I removed the RAM and just put 2 DIMMs back in, tried a different video card. Removed the Firewire card. Removed the second processor, swapped the second processor in place of the first. Reset the CMOS. I tried disconnecting the hard drives, optical and floppy. I've been monitoring the temperatures the last couple of days, the CPUs idle at 39C but never get above about 52C, the video card idles at 36C and will get into the 60s when benchmarking but stays in the 40s with regular use. I don't know what else to do. Here is a video of what it does.

https://youtu.be/7eSLWWsU86s

Thanks!

[DELL-Hemalatha]

Hi Donclemons

Good day. 

Thanks for writing to us.

You have done almost all the troubleshooting :). The symptoms are pointing towards motherboard. 

Just a quick question, during those few seconds while the system is on, can you check if the Optical drive ejects.

If it does,then psu is fine, if it doesn''t then its a motherboard failure.

The diag led's very fast to observe for any sequence . 

Please let us know if the machine is under warranty, we will get it repaired. 

PM us the tag# and your details.

Regards

[DonClemons]

Thanks for the reply Hema! Yes the optical drive will eject. No warranty, I bought it used a couple of years ago. I just spent money upgrading the memory and cpus and finally had it just like I wanted. Very disappointing. The other question then is last year I bought an OEM version of Windows 7 Pro from Microcenter, since the OEM versions are tied to the motherboard is there any way I can avoid loosing Windows too?

Thanks again for the quick response!

Don

[DonClemons]

I misread your response. It does eject the optical. So the PSU is fine? And since it does it may not be the motherboard? Is that correct?

Thanks

[DELL-Hemalatha · Accepted solution]

As the optical drive ejects, PSU is fine. Motherboard seems to be faulty.
Unfortunately there is no way we can stop losing windows. OEM discs installation will not prompt for a product key during installation.

[DonClemons]

OK Hema, thanks for your help!

[DonClemons]

Can I order a new motherboard directly from Dell?

[DELL-Hemalatha]

I have sent you a personal message, do reply to the same.

[DonClemons]

OK Hema, thanks. I'll look at it now.

[claytonb]

Motherboards in these machines are pretty solid, before replacing the board try reseating the CPU's