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dell dimension e520 shut off while in use power button blinking amber
As the subject says,
Dell dimesion E520, around 5 yrs old, Windows XP,
Has been running fine - no issues. While using it this morning it simply shut off, one second I'm working the next I saw a "no signal" box on the moniter -- the screen went dark.
The power buton was [and still is] blinking amber, hold it in and it stops blinking, press it again and it immediatly starts blinking again -- no attempt that I can see to boot up. None of the other start up lights blink and the normal noises not there -- just straight to blinking amber power button.
I've unplugged it, let it sit for 1/2 hr and retried twice.
I've repeatedly pressed the button off [blinkingstops] and on [blinking starts] a doxen or so times.
In case its heat related I have a floor fan blowing past the box and the door off.
This is the first computer I purchased ready to go out of the box -- all the others going back 15 years or so I assembled, what I don't have are the hardware diagnostic skills when the machine won't boot up at all.
Power supply ?
Heat related -- kind of ruling that out it's not hot here and the floor fan's been blowing for 45 min now - still no change.
Power button? Some kind of relay in there? Obviously the 120v isn't at the switch
Hope this description means something top one of you, all advice welcome - I'm resonably handy and will try to follow any advice.
Thanks --Bob
fireberd
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September 25th, 2011 06:00
Generally, a blinking amber power button is a power supply problem, this is not 100% but in most cases it is the power supply. As there is no way to accurately test a power supply other than substitution, a new power supply would be the first choice. The E520 uses a standard ATX style power supply, it's not a Dell proprietary. If you go for a new power supply get at least a 400 watt, Dell uses a 305 watt but Dell tends to underrate their supplies and the reason for the 400 watt suggestion.
rhz
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September 25th, 2011 10:00
Ok after a few hrs I cam back and tried it again -- and it powered up -has been running now for an hr or so.
No problems -- is a blinking Icon on the front - looks like a battery, I assume the CMOS battery - could this have caused a shutdown as described above?
and is there an event log I can accesss that I can access that would tell me what the problem was?
fireberd
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September 25th, 2011 15:00
The flashing light is probably the hard drive activity light as there isn't any battery indicator. The CMOS battery wouldn't cause it to shut down. If the CMOS backup battery is bad you would get a wrong date/time when you power on and possibly a missing drive error message.
With a power failure, the way yours went down, there wouldn't be any error log entry.
If it does it again, I would go for a new power supply.