Dell Dimension E521 AMD Design Flaw??? Help!!

Very sorry mate, I'm out of ideas. If MB won't respond to USB kybd, no PS2 port exists, it can't possibly be image/software, there is nothing left but replace motherboard or replace system.

I'd lean towards the latter rather than spending more money patching this one back together. And towards replacing it with something other than Dell, as this kind of unresolvable problem has become more and more common among their recent products.  They have offshored all their engineering to foreigners who make 1/10th as much per hour as genuine engineers, and seem to know 1/10th as much about what they're doing.

To illustrate that statistic, a 1998 Dell--US engineered--might be expected to last 8 years, about 100 months. Mine has lasted 10 years. A 2008 Dell is lucky to make it past warranty, or about 10 months. Yeah, the price dropped by a factor of 4, from $2000 to $500. But the life expectancy dropped by more than twice that. Cheers, and welcome to outsourced engineering. There's a reason WE invented this stuff, and not the Chinese.

My customer experience with Dell been exemplary, so I'm not out to bash Dell.  And of course, any manufactured device can develop problems.  I'd rather assist in solving them than have to throw up my hands and say replace it with something else. 

But I'm also a pragmatist, and I'm not going to say "buy another Dell" to someone who has reached a dead-end trying to get the one they have to work.

Yeah I was just making a comment. 

I think the problem is that by dell bios setup they put to overlook the kb at boot up since kb never worked at boot in the first place,  but when bios goes to default it looks for it, that can only be fix by going into the bios and disable again.  I wonder why they put it to bypass in first place.

Yeah I am still trying!    I was wondering if a pci express usb card can work.

http://www.pcimicro.com/.sc/ms/dd/Controller%20Cards--PCI%20Express/6851/Syba%20PCI-Express%20USB%202.0%20Controller%20Card%205x%20ports%20NEC%20Chip

something like that,  I just though asking here first in case someone tried it already.

I already tried a pci usb and it seems doesn't get the power or power enough. I was thinking may the pci express slot get power at boot and then give power to the usbs on time?

OK, so you're saying the powered hub does not supply power to devices until it receives power from system.  I've never used one, my system is simple, and the lab worked only on native systems, not the plethora of things that could be connected to them.  Scratch that then.

PCI power comes up when MB power comes up.  Whether the chipset will look there for a keyboard is another question.  I can't predict.  

Hi -

I was wondering if anyone found a fix to this problem.  I have the same issue with a C521.  Thanks for any help.

Hello,

Me too, Im having the same exact problem.. I need a fresh reinstall of windows xp because of too much virus it almost doesn't move..

I can't get inside the bios setup to make cd-rom boot first. I thought its because of my hardisk so I "forced" to reformat it on anothe computer..

It didn't fix the prolem, I still can't enter bios BIOS because of keyboard not working during bootup... and I don't have an OS!! I don't know what to do with m computer anymore!

Hope this helps....

I had the same issue, and found one of the USB ports had broken, and crossed connectors.... took the copper connectors out, to where they couldn't touch, and booted up.... EVERYTHING worked after that... thank god.

I've run into the same problem with a computer at my daughters business. It's loaded with virus's and I need to get into the bios and safe mode but cannot. I was going to mess with the CMOS, but I see were that made things worse for another e521 owner. Now I'm wondering if installing a PS2 PCI card might work with a ps2 keyboard. Anybody try this yet?  PCI CARD:  http://www.jtecdirect.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=ps2+card&osCsid=156b763805223b3c5a2f3a5db22be3a8&x=7&y=6

Cheers, Bill

Yes, I attemped to use one of those cards.  Didn't work, I found that the front USB port had broken and the gold connectors were touching.  Once I removed that problem everything began working.  But you might have another issue, that was the problem I expierienced.  I even replaced the motherboard, and it came back to the front usb port.

To whom it may concern:

The E521 bios that I am currently working on has bee infected by a virus. Same M.O. as discibed. The standard dell keyboard works with this virus but the system does not provide enouph voltage to run the multimedia keybord. The dell system tag has been removed from the bios registry. Many of you cannot access this because you are using a keybourd that requires more power than the basic one, I was fortunate to have one and tried it. I did try to reflash the bios to erase the virus but I get a window's error program stopped and it will not go any further. This is a pheonix bios machine but I cannot seem to find a flash that wil work before windows to try that. This is the first motherboard that I have seen in ages that has been efffected by a virus in the bios level. I reformatted the HD but I cannot plug the multimedia keyboard in with function. I am going to search to see if pheonix has a cure because Dell has hidden a cure if there is one if they ever cared it is an issue.