Need help re: GX270-era solid amber power light

Question

I have several Optiplex clamshell units that I am attempting to refurbish so I can get them into the hands of people who need a Win98 or Win2K system. I have accumulated GX150, 240, 260, 270 & 280 units in both tower and desktop versions. Here's my situation...

A couple of weeks ago, I booted up a GX270 to make a note of CPU speed, hard drive size, RAM, optical drive, etc. This afternoon, I grabbed it to spec it out for a guy who needed one. When I tried powering it up, all I got was a solid amber power light on the front.

This is probably the 6th or 7th unit that this has happened on during the last month. In those cases, I don't have any notes on the previous status of the unit, but, on the one today, I know it was just running within that last couple of weeks.

There are no visibly bad caps. I realize that caps can be bad with no outward indications but I wanted to see if anyone here remembers any diagnosis procedures from when all these units were suffering from the capacitor plague. In the other units, I tried different RAM and power supplies (just in case) but never got one to go beyond the solid amber light.

My questions:

are bad caps the likeliest cause of a solid amber power light?
before I start recapping, what else could/should I check/swap?
is there anything else I could tell you that would help you help me figure out what's going on?

Thanks in advance for any help or clarifications.

JEFF

SVJeff · Answer

I have a quick update...

After walking away from the system mentioned above, I came back to it a couple of hours later. Just for grins, I hit the power button again - it turned green and everything booted as normal. Wondering if the gremlins had left, I got the loopback plugs ready for the port tests, inserted my boot CD and floppy and rebooted. Back to solid amber...

speedstep · Answer

Solid Amber = Bad Motherboard Blinking Amber = Bad power supply

SVJeff · Answer

Bad Caps was the issue.  Re capping costs more than a newer PCI-E system. Thanks SpeedStep.  I'm not looking for a new system, I'm looking to rehabilitate these machines.  I was just hoping to verify that bad caps were the likely culprit in the fan rev/solid amber power light issue before I went to the trouble and expense.

speedstep · Answer

Bad Caps was the issue.  Re capping costs more than a newer PCI-E system.

SVJeff · Answer

I'm back to working on this situation again. Today, I found a group of GX280 desktops with similar symptoms. In most of these cases, it's the familiar one where the CPU fan revs like a jet engine and the power button light stays solid amber.

Realizing that the solid amber light means motherboard, I'm hoping someone might remember if recapping a board ever fixed these issues.

Thanks in advance for any help.

SVJeff · Answer

These systems however are too old IMHO to be considered useable.  A GX620,745,755,760,780 Tower or better can be upgraded to windows 10 I'm installing Win98 and Win2K on these GX150 to GX280 Optiplexes, so upgrade-ability is not in the equation and usability is not in any doubt.  I'll post a reply in case the recapping fixes the rev/amber issue so that future searchers can find the solution.

speedstep · Answer

There is a vendor that offers repair service and or Kits.

http://www.badcaps.net/index.php?pageid=premade_kit

Dell
Dell GX270 Universal Kit - 24 piece kit - $22.95
Dell SX270 Capacitor Kit - 24 piece kit - $24.95
Dell GX280 Universal Kit - 26 piece kit - $24.95
Dell GX280 SFF (Small Form Factor) Kit - 28 piece kit - $25.95
Dell SX280 Capacitor Kit - 30 piece kit - $29.95
Dell GX620 Small Form Factor Capacitor Kit - 10 piece kit - $8.95
Dell GX620 Ultra Small Form Factor Capacitor Kit - 32 piece kit - $29.95
Dell GX745 Small Form Factor Capacitor Kit - 11 piece kit - $9.95
Dell GX745 Ultra Small Form Factor Capacitor Kit - 27 piece kit - $24.95
Dell Precision 530 Capacitor Kit - 18 piece kit - $16.95
Dell Precision 650 Capacitor Kit - 38 piece kit - $37.95
Dell Precision 670 Capacitor Kit - 51 piece kit - $47.95

These systems however are too old IMHO to be considered useable.

A GX620,745,755,760,780 Tower or better can be upgraded to windows 10 64 bit providing it has at least a pentium D 915 chip, Optiplex GX620 and up Tower also has PCI-E video not AGP so any money invested in a video card can be migrated to newer and newer systems.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/21550787

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Need help re: GX270-era solid amber power light

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