Inspiron 3650, freezing?

Does the power button light up? Does it blink amber?

Is the PSU LED light on at back of PC? And what happens when you press the PSU test button?

Power button lights up steady white, no sign of the hard drive light below power button, keyboard lights up, no signal to the monitor, the fan runs, and PSU LED lights up, but nothing happens when I push the test button next to it.  I thankyou Ron for not giving up.  But I think it's beating a dead horse.

It's not dead, until I say it's dead...

Everything you just posted suggests it might actually be booting up, but there's just no signal to the monitor.

Assuming you have an add-in video card, AMD or NVidia, did you connect the monitor to the right video port? Onboard video ports are disabled when there's an add-in card.

An add-in video card would be in the area marked #2. You don't want to connect the monitor to an onboard video port in the area marked #1 when there's an add-in card.

Well now you are just making me laugh, "It's not dead, until I say its dead..."  Okay, time I have plenty.   Area #2 is completely empty, namely, no add-ons.  Originally it was connected to the monitor using a HDMI cable.  And my spare monitor does not have a HDMI port.  So I' using a DVI ? cable, the blue thing with the 2 screws.  I've considered using a HDMI cable but that would mean disconnecting this monitor the new computer is using.  Tomorrow I can try switching monitors around.  I used a sealed battery that was on hand, although I don't know how old it is.  So I could buy a brand new battery, a small expense. I can't help but wonder why the factory would put the MECLR1 jumper on the 'wrong' pins?  Or why it worked that way for 2.5 years?  You know, I have a 14 year old Vostro 220 that still runs great.  Me thinks at some time Dell started using lesser quality printed circuit boards.  A random intermittent short circuit might cause the freezing.  And a constant short circuit could keep it from booting, right?   

Surprised you don't have an add-in video card on a "gaming PC".

Make sure you have a fresh battery, only ~$2.00.

Do you know the "spare" monitor actually works?

The blue thingy with 2 screws?  The only onboard video ports on the 3650 are HDMI and VGA. No onboard DVI port on this PC. But if you're using an adapter cable with a DVI connector for the monitor on one end and VGA on the other end for the PC, those adapter cables only work in one direction, eg, DVI on PC to VGA on monitor. Your monitor would need a VGA (or HDMI) port to connect to this PC.

Some monitors are dumb and have to be told what video port to use. If the monitor has its own On-Screen Display (OSD) that's accessed by pressing a button(s) on the monitor itself, open the OSD and look for options to select the input video port. I have to assume VGA(PC)>VGA(monitor) so make sure the monitor is set for VGA. Then "reboot" the monitor and then reboot the PC. Or just try the original monitor.

Or just use the HDMI cable that's on the other monitor...

As for why MECLR1 was on the wrong pins...good question. Appears to have been a manufacturing mistake. With MECLR1 on pins 1+2 from the factory, the PC worked perfectly, at least until someone tried to do a BIOS update. They -obviously- didn't test for BIOS updating before shipping...

Gamming, yeah right, never could get into that.  I guess it's a sport now and I never was much of a sports fan.

Okay, fresh battery it will be.

And now I learn something.  The blue thing with screws is called a VGA port.  It never hurts to learn.

I connected the spare monitor to the Vostro 220 and it knew to use the VGA port and worked just fine.  I remember trying to use the VGA cable on the Inspiron 3650 without success, but it seems to me that I blamed this monitor and not that computer.  For shoots and giggles why not nothing better to do, I will disconnect this monitor and use the HDMI cable to connect to the Inspiron 3650.  This all might take a day or two.

I guess that make sense about the MECLR1 jumper.  We are all human and nobody can think of everything.

So probably not a short (sorry previously forgot that word after intermittent) circuit problem on the printed board?

I am amazed that you want to keep trudging down this path.  So I'll say," Thanks again Ron" and keep on going.

Yes sir, I thought about using 'shoots' or '?????' but it just looses the gist of it.  Finding a needle in a haystack makes one a bit punchy.  So now I have to learn how to edit a post. Sorry for the word with 4 letters.

At any rate, it will take a couple days to buy a new battery and install it.

Thankyou for sticking with this problem, Tom.

"Blue thingy" sounds so much more mysterious than VGA...

While installing the new battery, be sure to press/hold power button for ~30 sec  after removing the existing one, before installing the fresh one. And then close up, connect monitor via HDMI, and the mouse, keyboard to rear USB ports, and reboot. Be sure to power the monitor on first, before powering the PC on.

And please watch the language. This is a family-friendly forum, so please edit your last post and remove that word with 4 letters. I'm surprised the forum's censor software didn't automatically **Bleep** that word...

Hello Ron.  First the dumb question, am I correct that the Inspiron 3650 does NOT need the internet connection just to boot up?

So I disconnected the power and held the power button for 30+ seconds before opening the case, installed a fresh CR 2032 battery, and did another thorough inspection for loose connections or physical damage.  Everything looked good.  I connected this monitor and HDMI cable to it, along with mouse and keyboard.  When I connected the power cord the power button glowed a steady amber color.  When I pushed the power button its light turned steady white, the PSU LED, fan, and keyboard came on.  But the monitor still had no signal and still no sign of the hard drive light.  I then powered down, disconnected power, held power button for 30+ seconds and reconnected power, this time NO amber light.  Once again I tried to boot up and got the same result (except no amber light).  I rebooted a couple more times, with the same result:  white light, PSU LED, fan, keyboard all come on but no sign of hard drive or monitor signal.  And nothing happens when pressing PSU test or F12.

When it crashed on Friday the 13th, I searched for answers and found the F12 to access the boot menu.  I ran the boot diagnostic, but it got stuck on the memory portion of the test.  I don't remember the percentage but after 3+ hours I took it to Office Depot tech.

Well what is the prognosis? 

It never hurts to reinstall Windows 10, it just takes time.  Try Fresh Start form Windows Defender - Device performance & health, but backup files on a separate drive before you start.  Reinstalling from Windows Update - Advanced Options will backup your files for you, but my understanding is this route does not completely delete the current Windows 10 when reinstalling the new one.

I assume you tried disabling Support Assist and its components from Task Manager - Startup, so that Support Assist will only open manually and not during bootup.  This has worked for some people.

As far as I know, moving the MCLR1 jumper only fixes a BIOS update problem with the Inspiron 3650.

If you have a new 3670, try returning it to where it was purchased.  Otherwise, good luck!

I have a similar problem with a Dell 3670....it boots up and runs, but it always freezes (just did it while I was typing this reply).

Please someone help....the only thing I have not tired is re-installing windows and moving the jumper setting.

@tomtinker  - In one of your previous posts, you said "... took it to Office Depot tech".

What was the outcome? Did they fix it and what did they actually do?