Precision T3500 1-3 green lights + no boot

Do you know the new PSU works?

If you're using a power strip or surge protector, remove those and connect PC directly to the wall outlet.

Are you saying 1,2, and 3 are green or only 1 and 3? 1,2, and 3 is "Other failure"; 1 and 3 is a RAM problem.

If you haven't already done it, try reseating RAM modules in their slots, and disconnect all drives except boot hard drive and remove all PCI cards except video card.  Then remove motherboard battery and press/hold power button for ~15 sec. Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!) and see if it boots now with only mouse, monitor and keyboard connected.

If that doesn't help, remove all RAM modules except the one in slot 1. Repeat the "battery thing" and try to boot now. Then swap all modules into slot 1 to see if you find a bum module. If they all work in slot 1, add modules, one at a time to the other slots, do the battery thing each time after you add another module, until you reinstall all of them, or find a bad slot.

Always power off, unplug and press/hold power button for ~15 sec before working inside the case.

Thanks for answering!

The new psu works but it doesnt really fit very well and it didint resolve the no boot, blinking issue, leds 1 and 3 are blinking green a few seconds before it shuts down with a click. I dont have any surge protector.

Ive tried to reseat the ram a couple of times and also removing all ram stick trying one at a time in slot one. I first tried disconnecting all the power to all PCI cards, audio and gpu are the only ones, to do the psu to self test it, then later with various combination, psu+cpu, psu+mobo etc but no luck.

I have a problem removing the nvidia card because it doesnt seem to have the same clutch described in the service manual so im afraid of damaging either the card or the mobo when removing it

I sort of suspect either the graphics card or maybe a front usb connection or maybe the whole motherboard is damaged. As i said it was pretty warm when it shut down so i also think this might have something to do with it, it was pretty dusty when i opened it.

The standby light is shining on the mobo and another light briefly shines green when i press the start button or the self test button.

If the new PSU doesn't fit properly, are you sure it's putting out the right power for this system? If the symptoms are the same as with the old one, you might want to put that one back.

Are all the fans working, including the CPU fan? Did you try putting one RAM stick, alone, in slot 2 and then in slot 3, and then slot...?

What color is the power button on front of tower, and is it steady or blinking?

If nothing else, gently press down on the video card in its slot, if you can't remove it.

Maybe you have to take it into a reputable PC shop for a look-see?

The new psu is a CX600W modular, the standard is a 525W so i thought that would be enough? The fans just spin once then quit, so i cant get it up and running past that point, it just blink 1-3 green a couple of times then turn off no matter if i use the old or new psu.

I removed all RAM sticks then tried putting them back one at a time in slot one in order to see if it would run just on one stick, i mean all six cant be bad even if its a RAM problem?

The power button is amber btw.

Ive been researching this 1-3 blinking problem on the web and it usually seems to be caused by a dead psu, not memory configuration error as the code in the manual says. In one case it was the front usb connection that was broken.

Would a broken psu, usb or graphics card cause the same symptom as a memory configuration error?

When i removed the cmos battery it resets and defaults to RAID ON insted of autodetect RAID and i suspect that might be why i get a BSOD stop error 0x0000007b and 0x0fffff880009a9928 when i try to boot it??

I get ERROR CODE 2000-0146 on both the boot drive and the DVD Drive when i run the bootcheck

When i run the repairdisk i get this:

Problem signature

01: 6.1.7600.16385

02: 6.1.7600.16385

03:

04: 21200210

05: AUTOFAILOVER

06: 6

07: NO ROOT CAUSE

If there is anyone out there willing and have enough knowledge to help me i would really appreciate it, i think this failing psu error is common and there is not a whole lot of info to be found on the web to help people who dont have a ton of cash to pay for a repair or a new computer.

STOP 0x0000007b  means you have AHCI or ATA set wrong.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE

Error code: 2000-0146 (DST Log contains previous errors)

Error code: 2000-0146 (DST Log contains previous errors) refers to previous errors in the hard drive which might not really be a hardware failure. In order to confirm this, I recommend you to run a custom test on the Hard drive which takes longer time than the Pre-boot System Assessment which you have already performed on the computer but it will give the accurate result.

Once the Pre-boot System Assessment is completed, the computer will give you an option to “Run the remaining memory test”, please select “No”.  Then the computer will launch the 32-bit Diagnostics from the utility partition (if available).

After the diagnostics is launched, in the main menu, please click on “Custom Test”, then select the “Hard drive” and click on “Run Tests”. If the test completes without any error then the hard drive is fine and PC Restore can be performed to restore the computer back to the factory condition (which will result in data loss).

Please refer to the following article for more information on running the Dell 32-bit Diagnostics Utility: http://dell.to/MNJv4B

Thanks a lot for your answer! ill give it a try and post back, btw i posted in the harddrive forum as well with more details since it no longer is flashing 1-3.

After running the Dell diagnostics it detected a bad boot drive so i know what the problem is now. A bad PSU, incorrect BIOS settings + and a bad harddrive :emotion-21:

Btw if anyone else is interested i got a Corsair CX600M to replace the bad original 525W PSU and so far it seems to work fine except that it doesnt slide into the slot where the Dell PSU usually is fitted and i cant do selftests with it, plus i now have a mess of unused cables everywhere.

Thanks for your help!

Boy, that seems like a lot to go at the same time, PSU and HDD. Wonder if the PSU failed and took out the drive or maybe if you had a power surge on the AC line that took out both... ??

Hope the new hard drive finally fixes the problem.

Don't think you ever mentioned the version of Windows on this system, but keep in mind that if it's XP, you'll have to change BIOS back to RAID Autodetect/ATA to run the install, and install SATA drivers from a floppy diskette at the beginning of the XP install when prompted to press F6 to add those drivers. Then on the very first reboot after XP is installed, you'll have to change BIOS to AHCI if the SATA drivers were installed.

If it's Vista or later OS, you should be able to install with BIOS set to AHCI

Yeah i was wondering the same thing i dunno if it was lightning or something.

I think i'll install win 7 or 8 on the new drive when i get it and i think the BIOS options are AUTODETECT RAID/AHCI, AUTODETECT RAID/ATA and RAID ALWAYS ON. And it was set to AUTODETECT RAID/AHCI im almost sure of when i installed WIN 7 before this happened.

I think i messed up in not checking the BIOS RAID settings before i made a couple of attempts of restoring it.

There are a few things i wonder about; is there any documentation somewhere about the different settings in SETUP/BIOS in the T3500? And could viruses cause bad blocks/IRQ Stop errors?

The manual is here, but there are zero details about the BIOS settings options shown. :emotion-6:

If you opt for Win 8, be sure to run the Windows 8 upgrade advisor first to make sure your system can handle Win 8 and what hardware drivers you'll need. It's available free from the Microsoft site.

There are boot sector viruses that can prevent it from booting. Only solution to that is to fully wipe the hard drive and do a clean install.

I am having a similar problem with my T3500. Previously when having this error I went out and bought a new power source to replace one that was ~4 years old. Now I am getting the same 1 + 3 green blinking light error, but the power source is only a couple months old. The fix for me usually is to leave it unplugged for about half an hour, plug it back in and try again, this usually works. I have also had some success taking out all the Ram and putting them back in while using the power source reset button on the back. However, it keeps happening. I have to resort to leaving my computer on sleep, however after about a week or so, when I try to take it out of sleep mode, I get the same 1 + 3 green blinking light error and have to jump through hoops trying to figure out what it is. 

You have bad ram and non dell non eps12v certified power supply.