system thermal solution compromised

Any signs of overheating? Is the heat sink correctly attached? Are all fans clean and working?

You might try clearing NVRAM (resetting BIOS to factory defaults).

Unplug from wall and press/hold power button for ~15 sec

Open the case and remove the motherboard battery

 <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec

Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!) and see if it will boot correctly now.

Ron

I have a Dell Precision 690 with an updated A08 Bios.

With this Bios reset, now I can't enter in setup, I obtain this message:

Alert! Incompatible processor detected.

What can i do now?

Solvented.

I have do the following: quit the cable power, push/hold the power button for 30 seconds, put now the cable power.

I have had the same problem (on precision 690) pretty much since I bought this machine. It has been an intermittent problem until now.

I had previously been given the advice (by Dell ) to reset the IP - this used to work. The problem has got more and more frequent - now it does not turn on without the issue.  

Of course I am now out of warranty and so would have to pay for phone support...... this is not acceptable given the history

Is there any permanent solution to this??? DELL???????

New BIOS update to solve??

This was an expensive machine which I would not need to replace for 'years and years' (Dell technician's words)

It is  a far more involved problem than that

Got good support today from Dell - for those in the same situation:

Cleared some sort of hardware memory (?) by using the blue jumper next to the CMOS battery.

 - move the blue jumper to the nearer pair of pins.

 - take battery out.

 - put AC back in for 15 secs.

 - AC back out  and CMOS battery back in

 - put jumper back to original position

 - boot

Of course this may change start up settings (boot order, HD settings) so be sure to know what they are in case you need to do that 

- NB I am not a techie so I do not profess to know what I am doing  - It worked here (precision 690) having messed around for 3 yaesr with other 'solutions'

You have to remove the dust bunnies from the power supply and the system case.

Having a fault on the message 'thermal solution compromised' I tried the above and found myself not able to enter the system setup anymore. And above that it stated 'Alert! Incompatable processor detected.' Although before I had a working quadcore on the newest bios release working. Tried many times in different ways to drown all the power from the system (hours of disconnecting and removing cmos battery etc etc., pushing the startbutton tens of seconds) with no success.

A phonecall to dell support gave the solution: Disconnect from the power main, PUSH AND HOLD power button for AT LEAST A MINUTE. And this worked. Should have called them earlier...

Dell Precision 690 quad core system setup inaccessable  

Same problem and solved!

Dell precision will have same problem if you open case but dont close it.

Make sure you close the cover of computer case.

worked beautifully for my dell t5400.

Had the same problem that was driving me nuts.  Didn't happen every time I powered up but was happening more frequently all the time. 

Finally figured it out.  The cable from the intrusion switch to the mother board was defective.  In addition to the two wires from the switch to the connector, my cable had a short jumper on the connector itself.  One end of the jumper was not making good contact and just pulled out.  I was able to force the jumper into the connector to make a good connection.  Problem solved. 

Hello, during the boot process my Dell Prescision 490 stops and displays the following error message and instructions to continue: "Alert! System thermal solution compromised. Replace system cover and reboot. Strike the F1 key to continue. F2 to run the setup utility." Neither opening the system cover and rebooting nor running the setup utility has helped ... I should also mention that after hitting F1 the system boots without a further problem beside the fact that the fan gets realer loud - it seems that it works in some sort of turbo mode ... Any ideas? Is this a support case? TIA Gerhard

I was getting this alert every time I restarted or shut down, then my fans go absolutely berserk!  Tried every solution presented in this thread, some of them worked once, some 3 or 4 times, some of them didn't work at all.  The case intrusion switch was taped on my machine from the time I got it (bought it used).  I took it off and the alert went away.  Then the alert came back.  I have taken the battery out of the MOBO and put it back, I have blown out the entire case thinking some dust was accumulated somwhere and getting HOT. 

I thought once that my USB external drive was maybe having some driver issues, when I got it, I never installed any drivers.  Even after I updated the drivers and software related to the external hard drive

So one day I try something not related to the case, the case switch, the cover, or the thermal integrity of the machine.  I disconnected a couple USB devices.  At any given time I had 5 USB devices connected (mouse, keyboard, battery backup, external 3Tb hard drive, and a wireless N wireless adaptor, and occasionally a jump drive which I used for an additional daily backup).  So much crap connected.  With the backup drive and wireless N adaptor disconnected, I NEVER get the Alert anymore.  It is a huaranteed fix for me.

I hope someone else in this forum has a bunch of USB connections and this works for you.  It has given me so much grief in the last 3-4 months I was ready to buy a new machine and scrap this out.  I use it for business and absolutely cannot have it fail on me.  I've even had to work an entire day to meet a deadline with the fans going berserk.  I needed alcohol at the end of my day.

Thanks to the last 2 members for posting their fixes for this problem, which should help other users. :emotion-21:

@Morton_Mold_Design - I wonder if all your USB devices were over-heating the USB hardware and/or trying to draw too much power from it. It's possible an extermally powered USB hub (one with its own power brick) could solve your problem.

Plug the brink into the wall and the hub into a rear USB port. Then connect power-hungry external drives, printers, etc through the powered hub to the PC.

Note that some external USB hard drives (eg both of my Seagate GoFlex USB drives - different models) really need a Y-cable connecting 2 USB ports on the PC to the drive in order to provide adequate power. Most external drives don't come with a Y-cable and the manufacturers never mention the possibility (likelihood) that you need a Y-cable to power their drives properly.

Thanks for your input!!!  Although I had never received the "Alert! System thermal solution compromised.  Replace system cover and reboot" messsage for the first 6 years of using my Dell 690, I got this message today when I tried to boot up after having moved my PC to another location yesterday.  I had NOT removed the side case-cover, but evidently moving the PC disturbed what you have referred to as the "intrusion switch," which on my 690 is located just behind the "release handle" of the side case-cover.  After reading your recommendation, I did the following 4 things, and now my PC is working fine!

1. Followed the wiring from the intrusion-switch to locate the cable-mating-plug that was connected to  the connector on the mother board and squeezed the mating plug's retaining-latch to remove the intrusion-switch cable-mating-plug from the connector.

2. Examined the jumper wire on the mating plug mentioned above.  The jumper wire was already fully-seated in the mating plug and fully connected, so no action was required on my part.  Therefore, I reconnected the mating plug into the connector on the mother board (and felt to make sure the mating plug's retaining latch snapped into position.

3. Pressed and released the spring-loaded plunger of the intrusion switch numerous times to scrape any possible internal corrosive buildup that may have been preventing electrical continuity.

4. Prayed for God's mercy for getting this PC running again!