XPS 8500, motherboard replacement help

Did you decide if you're getting the single normal one-beep or the BIOS failure series of one-beeps separated by short pauses at boot?

Did you clean the top of the CPU and bottom of heat sink and apply a thin coat of fresh thermal paste (eg, Arctic Silver) before re-attaching the heat sink to the new motherboard?

Remove the battery and clear BIOS, but wait to reinstall the battery. Pull out add-in video card and any other PCI-e cards and reseat RAM modules in their slots. (How many RAM modules and are they all identical?)

Disconnect all drives except the boot hard drive. Recheck all connections to the motherboard including from PSU and front panel.

Now reinstall battery and close up, making sure cables/connections don't get dislodged. Connect only mouse and keyboard to rear USB2 and a monitor to an onboard video port. Does it boot now?

It sounds like maybe the old motherboard was shutting down after a few min because the CPU was overheating, eg the thermal paste dried out so PC was shutting down to prevent getting fried...?

Thermal paste, in no particular order: Amazon, Walmart.com, BestBuy, Newegg, local PC shop, etc, etc...your choice. You only need a small tube because you're only going to apply a thin layer of new paste. Lots of youtube vids about cleaning the top of CPU and heat sink and applying new paste, if you need instructions on that.

I'd be drastic. After removing the battery, remove everything but the bare bones essentials and re-check all the connections to motherboard. And remove all RAM modules except the one in DIMM1 (second slot from CPU). Then reinstall the battery.

If PC won't boot when it's down to the bones, then you probably have a motherboard or CPU failure (assuming CPU is correctly installed in its socket). Otherwise, you're just spinning wheels...

If it boots bare bones, now you can start adding things back to identify the offending piece of hardware.

After removing the battery for ten minutes -no change 

after removing the battery and video card - no change 

thermal is ordered, but it won’t be here until tomorrow.

the CPU is seated fine with no bent pins.

but here’s another interesting clue: when I remove the heatsink and turn it over? There is what appears to be a semi melted sticker. It’s stuck to the buttom of the heatsink and the top of the CPU. I honestly had not flipped over the heat sink until last night 

Guess that means you didn't apply fresh thermal paste when you installed the CPU on the new motherboard. :Ick: That might explain the problem with both motherboards. CPU overheats and shuts off to protect itself.

Sounds like Dell used a disposable stick-on thermal pad between the CPU and heat sink rather than thermal paste. That pad is supposed to be replaced whenever the heat sink is removed from top of CPU.

So carefully clean the pad off, without scratching the heat sink!  Be good idea to check out some of the youtube vids for advice to do this without causing damage. And gently clean the top of the CPU to remove any remnants of gunk. Some vids will tell you to use isopropyl alcohol. Don't use "rubbing alcohol" which is only 70% isopropyl alcohol+30% water.  

Apply a thin coat of thermal paste and reassemble. I'd still only install the bare bones to see if new motherboard works before installing non-essential hardware.

All this makes me wonder if there was actually nothing wrong with your original motherboard if the thermal pad was melted. In which case you have a spare now...

EDIT: Vic types faster than I do... !

That wAs thought exactly. I have to wait until the paste gets here to try. I’ll also have to get the right alcohol for cleaning. 

Start with the  new board first. If it doesn't work, you want to know that ASAP so you can try to get your money back before whatever "warranty" it came with, if any, expires.

99% Isopropyl alcohol - try your local chain drugstore, home improvement center, etc, and there's always Amazon. Just use it carefully because it can damage plastics, and avoid direct skin contact and vapors.

No status update for 5 days.  ???

Perhaps no status update and no further questions is a good sign that the problems are solved although it probably would help others to know what the final solution was.

Maybe OP just hasn't gotten the thermal paste and/or isopropyl alcohol yet, or the time to take care of it...?

But, yes, curious minds want to know... :Geeked:

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@Joe586 wrote:
Sorry folks, I’m trying to juggle a lot of things here. I sincerely apologize for not updating. The short version is that the motherboard project/problem was taken outta my hands. My parents are now going to take it somewhere to be fixed.

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...now that you know how to fix it...

Hi everyone

I have been a problem with my dell xps. When i boot up the pc it says keyboard failure then boots into auto repair. After a min it goes to a blue screen that says "your pc did not start correctly". I can't do anything at that point as there is no power to the mouse or keyboard. The power supply light is solid green and the motherboard light is solid amber and no beeps on start up. I figure its a motherboard problem but after reading this thread i'm wondering if it could be the battery reset. Any advice?

@adambomb77  -

• What PC model, an XPS 8500 or...?
• Is this a wired or wireless keyboard?
• If wireless, have you changed the keyboard batteries lately?
• Can you test this keyboard on a different PC or a different keyboard on this PC?

Assuming you have a known working keyboard, you can try clearing that error by resetting BIOS:

1. Power off, unplug
2. Press/hold power button for ~15 sec
3. Open case and remove motherboard battery (check XPS 8500 Service Manual for details)
4. Press/hold power button for ~30 sec
5. Install a fresh CR2032 3-volt coin cell battery (~$2)
6. Close up and connect mouse, monitor and keyboard
7. Reboot