Inspiron 15 3 amber 6 white

If you don't have a backup of your data, do that now while the system still runs.

Then power off, unplug the system and disconnect the main battery and replace the CMOS coin-cell battery (if you need the instructions, post the system model - N5110, 5525, etc.).

Then try powering up - if you still get the same fault code, the mainboard is headed to oblivion - depending on the system model and age, it may or may not be worth replacing that.  

ejn63,

Thanks!  Do you know if there is a way to tell which battery is in it before I bring it down?  (This way I can buy a new one and have it ready to swap out right away.)

Tom.

It's some version of a CR-2032 lithium button cell - sometimes just a simple one, sometimes wrapped in plastic with a pigtail connector.  You can look up the service manual for your exact model and it'll show you.

lol!!  THAT is funny!!!  I just got in a bunch of those batteries today for some other things around the home.  I will look for the service manual and confirm. 

THANK YOU!!

Tom.

I am not sure how many hours I have been working on this thing but it is still not working.

I followed the video for opening the case.  (I only unplugged the small ribbon cable under the keyboard.)  It was the battery you said so I quickly replaced it.  Closed up and powered on.  I was getting a Headless Option Failed (or Active or something like that.)  Now when I can get it past th blinking lights I get the Dell Logo then nothing.  It is sitting on a blank screen.

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks,

Tom.

Remove the base cover again, disconnect the main battery and with the system unplugged, hold the power button for 30 sec.  That should reset the system to defaults.

Then plug in the battery, close up the system and see if it'll boot.  If you can get into Setup thereafter (f2 at boot), check to make sure the system is set to boot from your internal drive, that secure boot is ON and UEFI mode is ON.

If the system still won't boot, it's likely the mainboard is toast.

Thank you for your help.  The burial will be later today.  I am getting the same lights and no access to anything.  Bummer.

Thanks,

Tom.

I had the same issue for the past 6 months and finally fixed it.

The main issue is the bios image of the laptop is corrupted and it needs to be flashed again.

all you need to do is:

ON YOUR SECONDARY PC:

1. Download the latest bios from dell website for the laptop model, the file will have .RCV format.

2. Rename the file and save it as BIOS_IMG.rcv

3. Copy the file to a flashdrive. NB: should be FAT32 Format

4.Insert the flashdrive into the CORRUPTED BIOS PC and plug in power 

5.press and hold ctrl and esc key and click your power button and keep pressing ctrl and esc and wait a couple seconds until the pc will boot.

6.finally a bios recovery menu will show up and follow the procedure to recover the bios.

Hope it works for you:)

Wanted to mention here that I had a similar problem with Dell's idiotic BIOS update problems on my Precision 7540 UHD.

What really frustrates me is that Dell has known about this problem for several years and it is still occurring. What pisses me completely off is that they include these broken bios updates with their Windows updates!! So if I don't pay attention and let Windows do an auto-update, I get the stuck-at-0% problem and have to unscrew the case and disconnect the battery to get it to work again. What's incomprehensible is that this was actually the formal process recommended by Dell... who never bothered to fix the problem. I mean at least let me use the power button if you're going to refuse to fix your bios update process...

Yesterday I forgot again, and windows did it's updates. But this time it actually didn't get stuck at 0%, but got stuck at 100% with ME process completed. Fan goes to super speed, I waited more than an hour, no change. Unplugged the computer and left it overnight, woke up this morning with a dead battery. Recharged a bit, and got the dreaded RED-GREEN-BLUE-WHITE bootup screen.

So after 3 years, dell managed to make their stupid bios problem worse.

Tried the recovery method to no avail. Didn't matter how many times I tried, it would always boot up into the flashing screen and then shut down.

Ran across this thread and checked the RTC battery. It's fine, but another thread suggested that you might need to unplug it for 10+ minutes then put it back together again to get it to work. So I did that, and powered up again to the same problem - but strangely enough instead of holding down CTRL+ESC and plugging in the power, I just did CTRL+ESC and pressed the power button. BIOS recovery came up immediately...

So just want to leave this out there for anyone facing the same problem. Try just using CTRL+ESC+POWER and if that doesn't work, disconnect the RTC battery for 10 minutes and try again.