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Precision T5500 - Won't Boot b/c of Ethernet Port Failure
I have a Dell T5500 and it was working fine until a few weeks ago when I experienced some sort of power surge I guess which damaged the on-board ethernet port. While the ethernet port stopped functioning I was still able to use the computer fine just without network access (installed a USB wireless adapter and all was good). However, last night the computer would not start. It just turns on the memory and CPU fans high speed and the network activity indicator and # 2 light flash and then the 2 light stays solid and the computer doesn't boot at all. In fact, there is never even a signal sent to the monitor indicating it is even trying to boot up. I have replaced the CPU battery and stripped out the memory and anything else which could have been a problem, yet the computer still fails to boot.
I was hoping there is some way for me to bypass whatever requirement exists for the on-board NIC to be functional prior to the boot process. Or possibly remove the on-board NIC adapter (which includes a USB port) to keep the error from preventing the computer from starting. My problem is identical to this post which never was never resolved. ----> http://en.community.dell.com/members/precisionjjs
RoHe
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December 19th, 2015 18:00
What color is the power button? If it's green and #2 is on, the manual says:
PCI device configuration activity is in progress or PCI device failure was detected.
So you may have a PCI card failure. Remove all PCI cards, except video. After removing them, reset BIOS by removing motherboard battery and pressing/holding power button for ~30 sec before reinstalling battery. If it boots now, you can add cards back one at a time to ID the faulty one.
If that doesn't help, it's possible the video card failed so you may need to swap in a known working PCI Express 2.0 x16 video card. Maybe you can "borrow" one from another PC to test?
jabetha
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December 21st, 2015 08:00
Thanks for the response. There are no other PCI devics attached except for the video card which I have tested in another computer and works just fine. I have also tried using another known-working PCI video card in this one and it still did not work. Yes, I agree it is a PCI device failure. I believe the PCI device that has failed is the on-board ethernet port, which I cannot remove. Well, I guess I could use some pliers and rip it off the motherboard, but I don't think that would address the issue. I tried the motherboard reset and it did not help. I was hoping maybe there is some way to boot the system without going through the pre-test (or post-test, whichever one checks for PCI devices and/or the functionality of the on-board ethernet port).
Thanks again...
RoHe
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December 21st, 2015 11:00
Have you tried to boot without the USB WiFi dongle connected?
Unless you can get into BIOS to disable the onboard NIC function, you're probably stuck. And it could even be the entire PCI bus that's failed, not just the NIC.
The NIC function is built into the motherboard, it's not something you could remove.
You may need to get a new motherboard or replace the PC. If this was a power surge, maybe you should file a complaint with your power company. Some of them have insurance that pays to repair/replace something damaged by a surge, assuming they can verify it was their fault...