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Woke up to No Power Up, Flashing Amber Power Button
Greetings all, Shaun here, new to the forum.
Thought I would post this, so someone somewhere may see it one day, and it may help them. Also, maybe someone here has an idea as to what may be causing this, as I don't believe i have fixed the underlying issue, just allowed myself to continue using my machine for the time being.
So, got up this morning, made my coffee, went to the desktop - Dell Dimension 9150. Hit the power button, NOTHING. Looked at the button, and it was flashing amber, probably once every 4-5 seconds.
Great. Opened it up, checked all connections. Unplugged, held power button for 20 seconds or so, until the green LED on the MB went off. Unplugged all peripherals, plugged back in, same deal.
Opened up spare, non working PC, that has a known good power supply (700 watt), threw that into the Dell. Sane deal. Started reading different forums. Decided to try jumping the green wire on the main power cable (24 pin), WHILE PC IS PLUGGED IN. I found, that as long as I would hold the jumper into the green / black wires, it would start the fans up, everything sounded like it was starting up. Problem is, I was nervous, as I didn't know if this was going to damage anything, so i didn't want to sit there and hold it for any longer than I needed to. Well, as soon as I took out the jumper, the PC would go right back to being OFF, indefinitely.
Original power supply back into the Dell.
Read somewhere, that someone was able to jumpstart their power supply, then plug it into the MB, power on, then remove the jumper. I decided to try something similar. With everything plugged in and attached as normal (keep in mind, this is back with the OEM Dell power supply) I jumped the green & black wires (again, on the main 24 pin MB connector), and held it there while the fans and everything else started up. I gave it a second or two, then hit the power button and it started booting up. Took out the jumper, and it booted normally, as if nothing had ever happened. Only I was out about 4 hours, and running short on patience.
PC is running right now, as I type this on my phone, and I have no intentions of turning it off anytime soon. I used to just leave it on, all the time. Probably was on for 2-3 months straight. I don't know what possessed me o power it down last night, but I did.
Anyway, what could be the cause? It's quite obvious, that it's not the power supply. Maybe the I/O board on he front, which the power button runs through?
I hope this info helps someone, somewhere, at some point in time, and thanks to anyone who takes the time to read and/or reply.
Regards,
Shaun
RoHe
10 Elder
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October 11th, 2017 12:00
I speak of the motherboard battery. It holds BIOS settings but if it dies, those settings may get scrambled or reset to the defaults so the PC doesn't know hardware is installed or what to do with it. And the default BIOS settings may not be suitable for your specific hardware...
CR2032 3-volt battery is only ~$2 at discount stores, so it's inexpensive to replace, even if it doesn't solve the other problems, but at least you will have ruled the battery out, and then look elsewhere for the problem.
RoHe
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October 9th, 2017 18:00
Replaced the motherboard battery lately?
Shaun95821
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October 10th, 2017 21:00
No, I've never replaced it, and it's probably never been replaced. This PC was given to me from a good friend, who had it for several years. Mfg date on PC is 2006. I always thought the CMOS battery just held BIOS settings, date, time, etc.? I didn't ever think that it had anything to do with powering up. Unless you speak of a different battery. Either way, I believe I just learned something. And thanks for your reply Ron.
-Shaun