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e_jacob77

8 Posts

22252

December 2nd, 2007 03:00

Optiplex 270, beeps on startup...........

HI all,
 
Lookin for possible causes for this particular problem...  Upon startup, after going through the load up screen, it takes you to a black screen, beeps 2wice, and wants you to input 1 of 2 commands.  1st being a reboot, which doesn't work.  2nd being setup utility.  These commands are all done with F1 or the F2 keys.  Already tried to reseat the video card and the RAM.  The harddrive is good, though it did have a bad cable.  I installed 2 other hard drives to see what would happen and still get the same effect.  I am almost down to thinking that the motherboard is bad, but would like to see what others might have to say?
 
Can you help out?  Questions would be cool too!!

gel314

1 Message

December 3rd, 2007 08:00

hI there jacob, i think we have similar trouble but my model optiplex gx150, only beep once and then messages appear "Alert! Previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [usb1].
Do you have any idea on this problem?
 

e_jacob77

8 Posts

December 3rd, 2007 15:00

HI all, gel, is there a message that goes with the alert?

scarfman

69 Posts

December 3rd, 2007 19:00

Did you check the motherboard for bad capacitors (the pop-can shaped cylinders on the motherboard)?  Look for bulges or brown crusty stuff on top.  The GX270s were notorious for bad caps.  If you have any, you can contact Dell support & they'll replace your board up until Jan 31 2008.

e_jacob77

8 Posts

December 3rd, 2007 22:00

HI all,
 
Yeah I actually did check the capacitors and all are still polished silvery looking.  Umm, my other question about the case and the 260 board are from the same computer.  Back to the beeps though, I've found that there are actually 2 kinds of errors possible.  1 is a parity error, and the 2nd is a hard drive or floppy drive failure.  I did switch out the hard drive with 2 others and the same 2 beeps came up.  I know it isn't the hard drive, but could a failing floppy drive cause a parity error?
 
THANX for your time on this one Scarf......

scarfman

69 Posts

December 4th, 2007 12:00

It's possible, you can try booting up the system without the floppy cable connected.  It's also possible the hard drive controller might be shot, which would mean the motherboard is bad.  You might try finding an IDE card & see if that works, or put the hard drive on the secondary IDE port instead of the CD-Rom (if there is one) & see if that helps.

e_jacob77

8 Posts

December 4th, 2007 12:00

HI all, I did try and use the second IDE port on the motherboard. Thanx for the other suggestions...

DELL-Jesse L

Moderator

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16.7K Posts

December 4th, 2007 16:00

e_jacob77,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

What do the led lights on the back of the system show? This may help in finding a resolution to the problem.

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