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XPS 8900, power on problem
OK - - - I have a notable power on problem with a Dell XPS8900.
Symptoms:
* Start button appears to do nothing in all cases.
* Upon connecting power, the computer will "attempt" a power up, fans spin, and about 1 second later everything dies. Upon waiting a period of time (minutes), I get the same result. If I DON'T wait, and reconnect power immediately. . . nothing happens. Note that the power up attempt is happening WITHOUT touching the start button.
* If I remove the CMOS battery and wait a while (minutes), and then install the battery and then power the following happens; The computer does the "power up attempt" three - four times in short succession. On the third or fourth attempt, the PC boots up. I do get a BIOS error for lost clock setting. It **Seems** like the PC is struggling to get data off the hard disk (it is a HDD), and firing up Windows seems to take more time than it used to. Note: Start button is not pressed in this scenario.
* After cycling the installation of the CMOS battery and getting a boot up, I can restart through windows. If I shutdown through windows, and come back to the computer 60 seconds later, it won't boot up (same behavior as noted above).
Troubleshooting to date:
* Replaced the power supply (yikers. . . )(no change in performance)
* Replaced the CMOS battery (first with one from another device, then with a fresh one purchased today) (no change in performance)
* No errors in device manager; HDD and optical disk is accessible (HDD seems slow). No memory error. The video card (GTX1060) seems to be alive. Once running, the computer seems "normal".
Any thoughts? (Yes. . .I have now recovered all necessary data off the machine. . . so I can be brave with experimentation)
BobFuji
1 Message
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November 19th, 2018 22:00
Hi,
I got the same problem yesterday.
I went to bought a new PSU (500W) but no help.
Please tell us how is going on with your PC after your last post.
Thank you.
BobVu
2 Posts
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November 30th, 2018 04:00
Hi Rohe, I have an interesting related issue with the BIOS setting is corrupted to default setting RAID, instead of AHCI, time-of-day not set. I replaced with new coin battery, bend the GND tab upward to make good contact, re-soldered the GND and + post on underside of board, same result. It behaves normally if I turn it back on within 15 minutes, after that the power led flashing amber/orange 2 times, then 1 time, the cycle repeats. Remove the video card, put it back, re-seat memory RAM, then it turns on but BIOS setting lost time-of day and default setting RAID. The power button and its connector #9 looks OK, I removed and re-insert when removing the motherboard. My main issue is "BIOS setting is corrupted to default setting RAID, instead of AHCI, time -of-day not set". I switched BIOS from latest 2.4 to 2.3 to 2.21 to 2.1.8 to 2.13 same result. Thanks
RoHe
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November 30th, 2018 11:00
Do you have a 32-GB SSD installed along with a regular hard drive? If you do, the BIOS has to be set to RAID in order for you to use the 32-GB SSD as a cache for Windows. If you break the RAID, Windows won't load and you'll have to do a clean install.
The 2,1 blink code is a motherboard failure... :Crying:
CN86jc
2 Posts
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January 11th, 2019 02:00
I have the same issue with my computer too. Narrowed it down to the power switch module through sheer luck. Long story short I put it to sleep now instead of powering off until I get a replacement ordered in.