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October 23rd, 2014 10:00
dell xps 420 will not boot up
I am currently unable to boot-up my Dell XPS 420 Desktop PC from a cold start. I have shut-down Windows and powered-off the Desktop PC completely and it will not boot-up again. All it does is get to a point, quite quickly, where it displays Diagnostic Lights 1, 2, and 3, and a blinking, white cursor at the top left of the screen, the rest being black. I cannot access the BIOS, as it doesn't reach that point and continued efforts to try turning it off and on again make no difference.
I turned the computer completely off for over 8 hours and now have tried to get it to boot up , so far with NO success??It has been waiting to boot up for over 3 hours.
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RoHe
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October 23rd, 2014 12:00
What color is the power button (blue or amber) and is it steady or blinking?
1-2-3 means "Another failure has occurred" which isn't very informative. If you're comfortable working inside the case, you may want to check that all cables are securely connected, reseat RAM modules and PCI cards in their slots, etc.
Always power off, unplug and press/hold power button for ~15 sec before opening the case
When was last time you replaced motherboard battery? It's a CR2032 3-volt lithium ion battery, ~$2 at discount stores. See page 170 in the manual for instructions to replace it.
You might want to try clearing BIOS:
If you're not comfortable doing all this yourself, maybe you have a geeky friend who can help...
Grocho53
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October 23rd, 2014 15:00
never replaced battery..Got PC to go to diagnostic screen..ran ALL diagnostics..all passed..
rebooted machine...I get 1,2 blue lights on case black screen with white cursor in upper left corner...still the same situation after booting and waiting for 1/2 hour...
Will go to electronics and get battery tonight...seems like the bios boot startup has gotten corrupted and not initializing the boot to windows screen.
Grocho53
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October 23rd, 2014 16:00
RoHe
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October 23rd, 2014 18:00
I'd replace the battery, if nothing else. to rule it out as the problem, since it's inexpensive. If battery is weak, it may not be holding BIOS settings correctly which can cause boot failures.
1,2: A possible expansion card failure has occurred.
So I'd carefully reseat all PCI cards in their slots after removing the battery, and before installing the new one.
And if reseating cards and new battery don't help, remove all expansion cards except the video card to see if that solves it.