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April 10th, 2018 13:00

Inspiron 546, won't boot

Re: Dell Inspiron 546, Windows 10 O/S;  

Re; too to original post "why are my fans racing?
The background on this is extensive and complicated with off subject posts, etc. I thought it would be less complicated to submit a new post;  

Background;  My unit won't boot up. Included is symptom of steady amber/yellow light. & after numerous suggestions and procedures, including bad replacement boards from dell and shop analysis, there was no solution. 

 Yesterday, April 9, I decided to go over all of the suggestions and procedures offered by individuals on this forum. I started with and am on hold with the CMOS battery.  I took it out and checked it with a multimeter and git a reading of low/bad and replaced it. I powered up and saw that the power light, for an instant, was the blue/white color and then reverted to the amber/yellow light but now, it is blinking and accompanied by a two beep pattern. Before, the light was steady amber/yellow with no appearance of the blue/white light and no beeps at all. I understand that the beeping would come in to play if there were no cards in the RAM, but in this incident, there are three installed, so does this info lead anybody into what might be wrong. i.e. short? Thanks 

 

10 Elder

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44.3K Posts

April 10th, 2018 16:00

  1. Remove motherboard battery and press/hold power button for ~30 sec
  2. Remove all RAM except the one in slot 1
  3. Reinstall battery and see if it boots with only mouse, monitor and keyboard connected
  4. Swap all modules into slot 1 to see if you can ID a bad one
  5. If they all work alone in slot 1, add one to slot 2 and clear BIOS by removing the battery and press/hold...
  6. If that works, add one to slot 3 and do the battery thing again. If adding one to slot 2 doesn't work, swap the 2 remaining modules into slot 2
  7. Keep going, adding modules to slots in order, until all are reinstalled and it boots or you identify a bum module or bum slot
  8. And none works in slot 1, motherboard failure...

Note: slot 1 is furthest  from the CPU. Slot 4 is closest to CPU.

EDITED:

Always power off and unplug and press/hold power button for ~15 sec before making hardware changes.

Blinking amber - there may be a problem with the system board

February 28th, 2020 14:00

Hi. 

I had the same problem. I resolved and created a video to explain the process. Link is https://youtu.be/jZT4XLRAhRY 

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