Keyboard Backlight flashes once when power button pushed, but laptop wont turn on?

Welcome to the Dell Community @jdbinyyc 

Hold down the “ D “ key and power-on.

The laptop should go through an LCD test of solid White, Red, Green, Blue and Black 3 times.

After completion it should try to boot 3 times.

If it does not boot, then the next thing would be to disconnect the BIOS/CMOS battery.

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/latitude-15-5500-laptop/latitude_5500_servicemanual/removing-the-coin-cell-battery?guid=guid-02f5656a-6e28-4554-bbc8-c9a2cb79ed37&lang=en-us

Disconnect the AC adapter and the “Main” battery.

Disconnect the “Coin-Cell” battery.

Connect the AC adapter for 5-10 seconds.

Then disconnect the AC adapter.

Connect the “Coin-Cell and Main” batteries.

Turn the laptop over and open the lid.

Now connect the AC adapter.

It should try to automatically boot 3 times.

Post your results.

Best regards,

U2

I upgraded my RAM from 8 to 16 - had to open/close case several times to get it to work - it booted fine and worked okay. However After installing RAM and working I tried to use the HDMI port - no dice. I tried different cables, still doesn't work. I ended up using a USB3 to VGA connector and the remote monitor worked (I say this to show that the HDMI is not working - it isn't the cables). The other problem is the one described above: I am getting this quick flash/no boot problem. However, after 2-3 attempts, it boots. I tried the recommended test ("D" + power on). The laptop ran through the color tests, but only booted once to my open screen - all works.

So since it only rebooted once does that mean there's a problem?

Also, what might be causing the initial failure to boot?

Updating. My current workaround is that I only turn off the Inspiron 5575 or allow it to sleep for no more than a few hours. When I press the power button, everything works.

I've also just adjusted the advanced power settings to prevent hibernation, though since I was having the 'won't wake or turn on until I've pressed the power key multiple times" problem after I had shut the system down overnight, I'm not sure I see a link between hibernation and off.

I noticed elsewhere that (I think) some data is retained on RAM for various sleep modes, so I'm wondering if there's an issue with the new 8gb RAM I installed.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

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@jdbinyyc wrote:

HI All,

 

attempting to fire up my Latitude 5500 after the holiday break, and it wont turn on? when i push the power button, the keyboard backlight flashes once and then nothing happens? no other lights come on (it seems the caps lock light and the num lock light on the buttons stayed on for a second), not even the charging light when its plugged in,  and working from home, its a bit difficult to bring it in to our IS team, so i thought i'd look for recommendations from you fine folks.thanks!!

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Check this out, this might help : https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/charging-light-on-keyboard-flashes-when-pressing-power-button/td-p/7716880/ 

Hi Did you ever get to the bottom of this?

I've had a Vostro 3580 that was dead and wouldn't charge.  I found that the power connector was broken, so I've replaced the connector, but now this is what I am seeing.

1. Plug the power in, the power LED comes on.
2. Press the power button and the caps lock flash for 1/2 second and then the power light goes off.
3. Nothing appears on the screen, the fan does not power on at all.
4. I've tried removing the memory, disconnecting the CMOS battery and the main battery, but it still does the same thing.

Thanks in advance.

didn't work

Turns out that the problem was with my power settings. Going back to the default settings solved the problem - all works well now. I don't recall this being suggested as a possible solution anywhere. It worked for me. Also, I didn't figure this out  which, as it turned out, was correct. HDMI still doesn't work, but I got an adapter that allows me to connect a monitor via one of the USB 3.0 ports.

I tried to post the final solution here - which contains ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION IDENTIFYING ME.

Someone monitoring should wake up and check before posting.

Thanks for being a Dell Community member.

Welcome to the Dell Community   @Toby Henry7 

If you read what the OP posted then you would know they could not "Reset" any "Power settings" as the unit could not power-on!!!

And if it was any "Power setting" in the BIOS, then disconnecting the BIOS/CMOS battery would have set the "Power settings" to "Default".

Best regards,

U2

Actually I was updating a post I made further down this stream - probably hit "reply" on the wrong post. For the sake of space, I won't re-post all my comments about my problem, which was different than jdbinyyc. My problem was that when I pressed the power button, the keyboard flashed but did the computer didn't boot. After trying various different ways of pressing the power button (short, long, etc.) the system would power up. So my problem wasn't "no power" but "intermittent" (or so I thought). The real problem was power settings.

Thanks.

@Toby Henry7​ how do you get into your power settings if the laptop doesnt even boot?

@U2CAMEB4ME​ 

It did not Boot up but it was nice to at least see bright colors on screen instead of darkness. Thanks for trying anyway.

@KIMHERRICK​ Cycling back to this (sorry it took so long!) I just kept pressing the power button in different ways and eventually it booted up. The problem reoccured today (1/12/24) after It had been shutdown for about a month. I again got the brief keyboard flash then nothing. But finally, after multiple attempts it booted up. So it may not have been the power settings. The problem only occurred after I added more RAM, so maybe that's the problem. This is a backup laptop, though after all the fuss of getting it restarted, it may become a garbage laptop!

@U2CAMEB4ME​ This did not work