Comprehensive Key to 4 Indicator Lights

simplitek,

The User's Guide may be able to help you on this.


Click Here for Dell User's Guides.

Thank you for choosing Dell.

Guess you didn't read my actual message. As I stated, the manual shows exactly 3 of the combinations, and one of the three is green all the way across, which if you have that, who cares about the rest.

I need something that has ALL the combinations. I guarantee you there is someone inside of Dell that has that information.

Thanks in advance.

simplitek,

I did read your actual message and I gave you the link to the User's Guide because it is the only thing available.

Ya gotta love the bureaucratic responses (we love you as a customer, but can't really help with all this old stuff 'cause it isn't profitable... won't you please buy a new one - FROM US!)   :-)

Dell should try to recognize that support of the old stuff does engender favorable word of mouth to those interested in future purchases. As many computer owners already own multiple computers and the market becomes even more saturated, Dell must realize that most future customers are increasingly likely to be current owners. It's got to be in their long term interest to be very helpful to those current owners.

<\rant>

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This won't help much either, but could be the start of figuring those oh so useful idiot lamps out.

While I'm still waiting for PIIIs to get cheaper and working to find another inexpensive used but high visual quality monitor to replace the one that recently fried, I hooked up my  working WebPC up to the KVM switches in the "computer lab" and watched the WebPC lamps wile the computer was booting. Very Interesting. There were lots of light combinations that sometimes changed quite quickly. Too quickly to write the series down.

So out came the digital camera (with the 15 frame/sec movie feature) and I captured the first 7 seconds of action.

Now I have a spread sheet of the time vs. state.

At the end of the 7 seconds things calm down for a while as the WebPC splash screen comes up. Eventually all the lights go green as the Win98 desktop emerges from the DOS chaos.

The following assumes that green = 0 and yellow = 1 and the lights are read from left to right while viewing the rear of the WebPC. The lights have been converted to binary and then to decimal.  GGGG = 0, YGYY = 11 (1*8 + 0*4 + 1*2 + 1*1)

Here's the short version of the data:

1

11

1

12

13

8

11

10

12

11

12

(and long after 7 seconds (and more changes, I think), eventually 0)

Your combination (YYYG = 14) doesn't appear in this list.

Some of the changes from one combination to another involve more than one light changing state in less than 1/15th of a second. This would tend to support a theory that each light is NOT likely associated with a given subsystem in the computer. Therefore we should be looking for a list of sixteen cases, not just the three shown in the owners "manual".

Does you WebPC go through a series of light states or just have the one?

As a followup to the previous data presentation, here is the status light state sequence from the "rest" during the WebPC spash screen until the lights go all green and stay there:

 

12

1

11

9

10

1

0

1

9

10

1

10

0

Again no "14".

 

To quote from the user's guide referenced in a post above:

"If the indicators display a code that is not illustrated in Table 1, contact Dell for instructions on obtaining technical assistance."

John M: Does this post constitute a contact of Dell to get instructions on obtaining techinical assistance?

Ignoring the cases where the light(s) are off:

So far the codes we have observed beyond those in the guide (0 & 8) are:

1

9

10

11

12

13

&

14

What are the interpretations of these light states?

 

Tonight's few minutes of WebPC exploration were devoted to introducing some faults to see how the lights react.

Removing the memory:

YGYY = 11 along with three, repeating, POST type beeps.

Removing the processor (no switches/jumpers in the center of the processor socket):

Off Off Off Off, with the lights on the front of the unit on.

No processor and no memory simultaneously:

Same as no processor.

Disconnecting the HD and CDROM:

Booted to the splash screen and the expected at that point YYGG = 12.

That's as brave as I got.