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Fans in my Inspiron 546 are racing
Actually, this all started one morning a little over a week ago, My computer would't boot had nothing but a steady yellow light, The consensus said it might be the power supply but more likely a component in the motherboard went bad., I've had my unit for 9 years, so i'm not surprised that something is breaking down, Anyhow, I tested all the voltages on the power supply & they checked out ok, Next i bought a motherboard from Dell got it a day ago and installed it and still I have nothing but the steady yellow light, I can't suspect he motherboard because I have to believe that Dell sold me a good board, so I opted to check the power supply again & disconnected he power supply cables from all destinations. and again it checked out good, so I reconnected all of the cables & wires to their proper destinations and turned the unit on again., Still have he steady yellow light land now the fans on the heat sink & the fan mounted to the back are racing, The power supply fan is running normal speed., The only way can shut them off is by pulling the plug our of the power supply. The only other time I had fans speed up is when we have house power failures and all I did in that case was to shut the power off to the computer and right away turned it back on and the computer ran normal.
What's happening? What do i do next since i have go assume the motherboard is good and the power supply checks out ok, and why are the fans racing,.
.
zuko53
41 Posts
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March 27th, 2018 16:00
I don't appreciate playing ring around the rosy with the Tech Dept and Support care and finally waiting for over 20 minutes with an open phone where I hear people talking but nobody answering me. The guy i was speaking to left and didn't come back. I got the feeling he was hoping I would hang up.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
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43.7K Posts
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March 28th, 2018 09:00
Is the shop sure it's not a problem with the front I/O panel and/or the cable connecting the front panel to the motherboard?
You might want to post just the last part about getting what may perhaps be a second bad board and your tech support experience in the Customer Care forum that's monitored by Dell employees.
zuko53
41 Posts
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March 28th, 2018 11:00
Actually he said the board is bad (NO VIDEO)
v
zuko53
41 Posts
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March 28th, 2018 11:00
What cable do you mean? The front bezel is off and the only thing that is on the front are the optical drive, card reader, usb ports & the power switch and they are all connected. When I got the first refurb motherboard and that didn't work, I had the computer checked by a friend and he determined that the board was bad and I got a replacement and when that didn't work, I took it to a guy who is in the business over 25 years and he determined that the second motherboard is no good. Cost me $50 so fat just for testing.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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March 28th, 2018 14:00
Google says this is a 6-year old computer?
See if you can return this 2nd motherboard and anything else you spent money on (and can't use somewhere else).
Stop now while you still can. You tried but it didn't work-out. Lesson learned.
You can buy a refurbished desktop similar to this for $75-$100 retail. Your local computer recycler likely has some working Dell desktop for $50. Your friends likely have something this old in their closet (that still works, but just needs a hard--drive which you have).
Yeah, the auto junk-yard is full of good cars, but they just can't be fixed easily and affordably (so you move to the next one).
I only fix the nicer/newer/originally-expensive ones ... All computers are "expendable crew-members". :Smile:
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
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43.7K Posts
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March 28th, 2018 19:00
There's a cable that goes from connector #12 on the motherboard (page 45, here) to the front panel, and there are also 3 USB cables from the motherboard to the front panel, motherboard connectors # 17,18, 19, and an audio cable from the motherboard to front panel, motherboard connector #20.
All of those cables have to be properly connected at both ends.
Seems hard to believe they'd send you 2 motherboards with exactly the same problem. Makes me wonder if somebody goofed and just sent you back the same 1st board that was bad...??? Keep in mind that onboard video is part of the CPU, so perhaps you have a bad processor? Have you tried any of the other ones you bought to replace the original?
What happens if you plug in a PCI-e x16 video card into motherboard slot #23, assuming you have a spare laying around or can borrow one from some other PC?
And as I said before, only you can decide how much more time and $$ to put into this older system...
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
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47K Posts
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March 29th, 2018 00:00
Dell™ Inspiron™ 535/537/545/546 Service Manual PDF
Inspiron 546 Setup Guide PDF
Earliest models came out in 2008 last models were sold in 2009.
5 years past this is 2014 in which case windows 8.1 systems were being shipped. Optiplex, Dimension, Inspiron models changed from 3 digit models like 760, 780, 790 to 3010, 7010, 9010 Inspiron 535 620 630 became 3650 3847 etc.
The 546 is a model that is well past End of life End of support. Dell would not sell spare parts for this model more than 5 years after even extended warranty ran out. As systems can be warranteed for up to 5 years (7 years in some rare cases - usually government models.) The System Design Life Cycle for systems is 3 years and 5 years with warranty extension which is not free.
- They stop manufacturing when they have planned the replacement - based on component availability. INTEL, AMD, etc do not make the same parts available for 20 years.
- They stop providing technical support on products after the purchased warranty contract term is up , within the scope of their "out-of-warranty" support.
- They generally limit purchasable extended warranty terms to 5 years.
- They gradually dimish stock on replacement parts available to the public as more and more systems go out of warranty, to the point that any parts they have in stock are reserved strictly for in-warranty customers and are no longer available for purchase from Dell.