XPS 8900, sometimes blinking orange power button

Question

I have here a barely used XPS 8900 that is approximately 2 years old, but has sat around for most of that time waiting for a home office to be finished.

Sometimes it boots up just fine, I plug the power cable in the green light on the PSU lights up & the fans start, the power button turns white and away we go, perfect. However, sometimes when I plug in the power cable, nothing happens on the PSU, but the power button flashes orange 15 times, pauses, then blinks twice, pauses, blinks twice & then continues this double blink cycle.

I have removed all the Memory modules & the video card, cleaned everything, reseated everything, tried it with 1, 2, 3 & 4 RAM modules, booted it without USBs plugged in, it either boots perfectly or gives me this orange light situation.

I've looked at the official DELL reference guide and the diagnostic check list for LED indicators, but this only goes from 2,1 to 3,7 why am I getting 15 blinks ?!?

If I ignore the 15 blinks and just go by the 2,2 repeat, that list suggests it's the Motherboard Power Supply, does that mean it's the PSU ? If so then how come it sometimes works like a dream ?!?

The only way I can get back to a working PC, is to leave the power cable out of the machine for a long time (up to 24 hours sometimes !!!) then when I plug it back in, if I'm lucky it powers up and works perfectly !!!

Hopefully somebody here can shed some light on this for me.

zukdj · Accepted Answer

Any chance you installed a beefy video card in it? If so its possible the video card is dragging down the power supply for lack of proper power. It looks as though you unplug it all the time? Why? I'd leave it plugged in all the time and see if the problem subsides. It's possible the BIOS battery is losing charge if you are leaving it unplugged.

RoHe · Answer

If you're using a power strip or surge protector, remove those and connect PC directly to a known working wall outlet.

And before you go too much further, I'd replace the motherboard battery, CR2032 3-volt coin cell (~$2), if nothing else than to rule it out, especially if the PC has just been sitting around, unplugged...

StellaMan · Answer

It's not actually mine, I'm trying to resolve the problem, but yes, it has what looks like a "beefy" video card in it ... I can see GEFORCE GTX on the side, but I'll need to dismantle it all again to get a better look and am unable to do that for at least 6 hours now, if at all today !! Edit : I can see GTX 960 if I shine a torch inside !!

The symptoms are as described by the owner, I wouldn't unplug it at all were it mine ... I will try a new CMOS battery as well ...

StellaMan · Answer

I don't know about where it was plugged in, but it's directly to the mains here ... I will try a new CMOS battery ASAP ... Thanks

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XPS 8900, sometimes blinking orange power button

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