middle keyboard light blinks 9 times

Question

my dell 600m's middle keyboard light blinks 9 times (no screen, no bip) and then shuts down.  Does any know what the problem is?  what the error code is for 9 blinks?  I have found nothing on the dell website.

phredd · Answer

I have the same thing happening on my Inspiron 6000! It comes on, the light blinks 9 times, there's a brief "click" from the HD and then it turns itself off. I've only had the thing for about a month. It was working fine the night before.

If you've found any resolution, I'd be grateful to hear it!

jackshack · Answer

This sort of problem can occur due to a memory module fault.  The first thing to try is to reseat the memory cards.  for the 600M you should review the following:   If reseating the memory modules fails to cure the problem, remove both, then try one at a time in the computer.  You need to check each module separately in both sockets as you might have a failure in either the socket or a bad memory module.   Good luck!

phredd · Answer

I emailed (through the Dell support site) my problem, and they responded quite quickly and simply: A replacement machine will be sent out in 3-5 business days! Let's just hope that one doesn't have similar issues. ;-)

And FYI, I did try reseating the memory as well as the HD, to no avail.

tfulme · Answer

thanks for the reply.  One of my memory socket is bad,  they primary one.

lgphoto · Answer

This exact same thing happened to me! I have an Inspiron 5100. I ran some diagnostic (the one you get when you press Fn and boot up) and it said DST short test failed or something. Dell is going to send me a replacement hard drive. But does this mean the problem might not be my hard drive?

lgphoto · Answer

Ok I tried alternating the memory sticks and booting with only one memory stick in. It still wouldn't boot, but instead of the middle light flashing, the right two lights are solid, then it shuts down. What's going on here???

Stratuslowrider · Answer

I just had my 600m looked at my the IT guys at my place of employment, after having the same DST short test fail message for the last 9 months off and on.  They thought it might be my RAM, but it was the hard drive, and the  fan unit was bad, not to mention my keyboard had keys that wouldn't work at all (V-key and the T key when using the shift button)  It looks like I am going to be buying another hard drive  (60GB hopefully) and will also upgrade my RAM (1 GB hopefully), now I also need to buy a new keyboard as well.  The funny thing is, my system is only 3 years old this year.

JasonMK · Answer

I liked the suggestion that this probelm might be due to the memory modules not seating properly, but as one of the other posters has mentioned, i tried and that didn't seem to be it. Is this an official explanatin of the "nine beeps" or is this an educated guess? Following this logic i even went a step further and replaced my RAM (wanted an upgrade anyways) to no avail.

-JasonMK

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middle keyboard light blinks 9 times

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