G5 5505 Power button LED

Anyone know when the LED on the power button on a G5 5505 is supposed to be lit?  Mine never lights up, and because of this, its very difficult to know when you have successfully turned on the laptop.  I find myself just having to be very patient and try to listen carefully for the fan to turn on which can be hard to hear if its not in high speed mode.   Of course, holding the button down too long (10 seconds) would also do a cold shutdown, which I usually don't want.

At one point, my backlit keys quit lighting as well, but I figured out that turning the high performance mode ON and then OFF (via the special Dell G function button) seemed to reset the issue and now the backlit keys now work in any mode.

So, I'm wondering, is there any software which controls the mode of the LED on this button?  Maybe manual triggering of this LED will start it working properly again?

Thanks!