XPS 420 wont post

Hi ,

Thank you for writing to the Dell Community Forum.To help me get a better understanding of this issue would ask you to provide some more information regarding the issue.

*What is the status of the power button ,is it off or orange or white if it is steady or blinking .

*If the power button stays off or is blinking/steady  orange would would suggest you to perform the power supply self test by

*If none of the indicator lights turn on then would ask you to disconnect all the peripheral components from the system ,disconnect the hard drive ,optical drive cable then reseat all the power cables to see the status.

I hope this helps.Also do reply to this post with the result of the test so that I can assist you further.

Have a great day ahead.

Kindest Regards,

Power button on front of case is steady blue,as usual. Lights 1,3,4 are illuminated. 2 isn't. Have already re seated all cables to no effect. There is a steady amber light on the motherboard at the rear of the PC case. Don't know if that is relevant?

Hi ,

Thank you for the reply!With the power button staying steady blue indicates the system is receiving sufficient amount of power from power supply unit.Now to eliminate the faulty component would ask you to remove the memory modules ,hard drive ,cd drive ,graphic card (addon card ,if any )from the system then try to turn on the system to see if it makes any difference.Here if the system board is working fine it should recognise the missing components and correspondingly reply by displaying indicator lights or beep codes.

Also do reply to this post with the service tag of the system (sent via private message) so that I can check the specifications of the system .

Awaiting your response.

Kindest Regards,

On the xps 420, all the 1-4 lights should go out when booting is complete. Check the diagnostic lights in the manual. 1-3-4 means there are a couple of  things wrong--memory failure at the top of the list. 1 by itself means no memory detected and 3-4 means memory problem. There is no listing for 1-3-4. From the manual--

To help troubleshoot a problem, your computer has four blue lights labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the top bezel (see "Front View" on page 15). When the computer starts normally, the lights flash before turning off. If the computer malfunctions, the sequence of the lights help to identify the problem.

Turned out to be the motherboard. Have salvaged some components and the rest has been consigned to computer heaven as it's not worth spending cash on repairing an older computer. Thanks.