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I have a 3 year old Dimension 5150/E510 and have a BIOS problem
I was trying to upgrade the PC's BIOS from the A05 version to the A07 version. I got the upgrade from the Dell Support page for the E510. Now, when I try to power on the machine, it won't boot to windows. I can see that the machine is getting power via the DVD and CD-RW Drives being read, the hard drive is getting power however, I get nothing on the monitor and the machine seems to be frozen. In addition, the PC seems to be sounding an alarm (high pitched buzzing noise). This noise comes on and off about 6-7 times and then stops. The PC doesn't show anything on the monitor.
Can anyone help me?
Dev Mgr
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November 19th, 2009 11:00
What exact beepcode are you getting? The beeps represent an error code. For some reason the 5150's manual says to write it down and call support, but beep codes seem to be the same across most Dell systems, so you can look up the specific code under a different system's manual and get a bit of an idea what could be causing this.
One thing I was wondering; why did you upgrade the bios? Were you wanting to upgrade the processor or so?
pfhokie
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November 19th, 2009 12:00
I was having problems with my DVD and CD-RW drives. They weren't reading any new disks I had so I went through the troubleshooting process that Dell had for the machine. One of the steps was to upgrade the Bios. When I flashed the Bios is when I started having the problems.
shesagordie
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November 19th, 2009 12:00
pfhokie
Is the power switch LED lite, what is the colour, is it blinking, or solid?
Check the diagnostic lights on the FRONT PANEL
If you had a BIOS upgrade failure, try removing the CMOS battery on the motherboard, wait 30+- minutes, replace it and see if the PC starts.
If this does not fix the problem, then the typical remedy for failed, or corrupt BIOS flash, is to replace the motherboard.
Bev.
pfhokie
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November 19th, 2009 13:00
The diagnostic lights are all solid green. They are not blinking. All indications are that the CPU is on.
shesagordie
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November 20th, 2009 11:00
pfhokie
Have you checked the power button LED, what is the colour, is it blinking, or solid?
Bev.
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March 13th, 2012 02:00
Shut the PC down and take the side panel off. Once the side panel is off with the PC shut down remove the round battery from the motherboard then turn the PC on and let it run for a moment with the battery out. After you let it post with the battery out then shut the PC down and replace the battery back on the board. Restart the PC and the original A05 bios will be back. I know this post is old but maybe you still have the PC and never figured it out and if not maybe it can help someone else with the same or similar problem.
fireberd
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March 13th, 2012 05:00
The proper procedure to reset the CMOS memory is to Power Off the PC, remove the CR2032 battery for at least 10 minutes (Intel says 15 minues). Replace the battery and power on.
However, there is no recovery procedure for a corrupted BIOS on a Dell. If the BIOS is corrupted, the ONLY option is to replace the motherboard.