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Inspiron 3646, Power LED blinking
Hello all,
I have a Dell Inspiron 3646 that will not POST anymore, when the power button is pressed, the power LED starts blinking amber in the following pattern: 2x blink, pause, 3x blink, long pause, repeat.
If a monitor is attached, no output is displayed, the system will not respond to keypresses if a keyboard is attached.
I have already tried to remove the CMOS battery and putting the jumper in the "Clear CMOS" position, and left it like that overnight, unfortunately to no avail.
I have found the following page listing blink patterns for this system: A reference guide to the Inspiron Desktop Diagnostic Indicators
Unfortunately the particular blink pattern I am getting is not listed on this page, so any information about this particular pattern, or other suggestions, are highly appreciated.
fireberd
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July 22nd, 2018 03:00
Like you, and I have access to other documents, I do not find anything on your specific error codes. However, I would suspect that ultimately the motherboard is the problem. What did you do prior to this? Update the BIOS? Have a power failure?, etc.
To be blunt, considering the age of the PC and that it is an entry level system, I wouldn't consider repairing it.
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
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54.3K Posts
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July 23rd, 2018 09:00
Blinking amber power button LED =
* Stuck in an S3 power state
* The motherboard cannot start initialization
* Possible power problem. Ensure the power cable is connected to the motherboard and CPU
Open the case cover, power the PC on. If it has one, does the motherboard flea light turn on? Does the PSU have an internal fan? If yes and turned on, is this fan spinning? Consider disconnecting the power cable from the PC, opening it up and disconnecting/reconnecting every card, cable, etc. Perhaps something is not fully seated.
GBZ1998
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July 23rd, 2018 10:00
Hi Chris M,
This particular model does not have any LEDs on the motherboard, it has no internal PSU (it uses the same external adapter used by Dell Latitude laptops, currently using it with a DA130PE1-00, I have also tried another one to rule out this particular adapter).
There is a fan on the CPU that will start spinning when the system is turned on. For what it's worth, if I remove the RAM, the blink code changes to 2x blink, pause, repeat, which seems to be the correct code if no memory is detected.
Pretty much the only cables attached to the motherboard are those for the front panel and a SATA connector for the DVD drive, I have tried reconnecting all of them, unfortunately to no avail.
GBZ1998
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July 23rd, 2018 10:00
Hi fireberd,
This system was handed down to me because of this problem, so I don't know what was done prior to me receiving it, as far as I know no attempt was made to update the BIOS.
Agree with you on the age of the machine, it's mostly the small form factor that makes it interesting to me to attempt to fix it. :Smile:
DELL-Chris M
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54.3K Posts
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July 24th, 2018 06:00
Apologies, thinking of other Inspiron Desktop. Agreed, multiple AC adapters tested, same issue, most likely a motherboard fault. At a minimum, I would replace the CMOS battery and retest.
imnoquitta
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January 6th, 2022 08:00
I know this is an old topic, but did you by any chance figure out how to solve the blinking led issue? i have the same blinking sequence as the OP. Thanks in advance for any tips
GBZ1998
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January 6th, 2022 09:00
Hi, yes I did actually!
Turns out it was a pretty dumb mistake on my part, as I mentioned in my earlier post I got this PC because it was thought of as being defective, and it came to me without memory. I assumed I could use normal DDR3 memory, but this PC really only supports DDR3L. After inserting a stick of 8GB DDR3L (the maximum this computer supports), it started worked immediately. It's still working to this day and I use it regularly for some light work.
It was quite a while after I made the original post that I gave the computer another look and figured out the memory issue, so I forgot to post the solution here, sorry about that.
I'm still not really sure why it was perceived broken in the first place (before the computer got to me), my guess is that the memory went bad and they misdiagnosed it as a bad motherboard.
Hope it helps, if I can test something for you let me know.