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Dell Precision T5400 will not boot, shuts off immediately
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.
Thanks!
DELL-Hemalatha
2.8K Posts
1
January 15th, 2016 00:00
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.
DELL-Hemalatha
2.8K Posts
0
January 14th, 2016 05:00
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
10 Posts
0
January 14th, 2016 08:00
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
10 Posts
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January 14th, 2016 09:00
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
DonClemons
10 Posts
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January 15th, 2016 07:00
OK Hema, thanks for your help!
DonClemons
10 Posts
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January 15th, 2016 11:00
DELL-Hemalatha
2.8K Posts
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January 15th, 2016 20:00
I have sent you a personal message, do reply to the same.
DonClemons
10 Posts
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January 15th, 2016 21:00
OK Hema, thanks. I'll look at it now.
claytonb
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January 15th, 2016 21:00
Motherboards in these machines are pretty solid, before replacing the board try reseating the CPU's
DonClemons
10 Posts
0
January 16th, 2016 22:00
Clayton, I did try that, in fact I tried 3 different CPUs. I inspected the sockets with a magnifying glass to make sure there were no bent pins. I've had an intermittent problem like this for a while that I always attributed to something else so I think this has been lurking for a while. I really like this machine and have it upgraded with max ram and 2 Xeon E5450s. I do a lot of music recording and mixing and some video editing and it's perfect for that. I have several T3500s that I would go with if I didn't have this one just the way I want it. Thanks for the suggestion.
DonClemons
10 Posts
1
January 23rd, 2016 18:00
Just to follow up. It was indeed the motherboard. Dell would not sell me another one but I got one from a reputable dealer on eBay. Installed and back up and running. Had a bit of a scare when I first started it up with the fans all running full and a message saying the installed CPU was not supported but a BIOS update fixed everything. Thanks for the help DELL-Hema. I wish Dell was more supportive of individuals, especially ones like me that can't afford new computers and have to depend on getting older systems running.