Latitude E6430 suddenly won't POST

Question

I was in the process of replacing the hard drive and after changing boot settings in the BIOS and applying, the screen turned off but the computer remained on and wouldn't power off or reboot. After a few minutes, I forced it to power off and now it won't POST.

Power LED lights up, caps lock blinks and that's it. Seems to stay powered on indefinitely but no fan and screen doesn't come on. If I press the power button a second time, the fan turns on for a few seconds and then the computer powers off.

I have tried disconnecting the main battery, CMOS battery and RAM for several minutes and it hasn't made a difference. If I power it on without RAM, it gives the appropriate LED diagnostic code (1 solid, 2 and 3 blink) so it can't be completely bricked but seeing as it was working fine until I changed a boot setting, it would seem the BIOS is corrupted.

Wondering if there is any BIOS recovery option via flash drive or any other method.

U2CAMEB4ME · Answer

Welcome to the Dell Community @kahlil88  Try holding down the ' D ' then power-on the laptop. Does the display go through the test patterns??? Best regards, U2

kahlil88 · Answer

Yes! Wow, quite a relief to see the screen actually power on.

U2CAMEB4ME · Answer

@kahlil88

Sorry to say but with everything you have tried it sounds like you have one of the Mystery/Engineering defect laptops.

https://www.dell.com/community/Latitude/Dell-Engineering-defect-found-on-Latitude-E7240/m-p/7708634#M26558

Sad to see another model to add to the growing list.

Dell has to now about this defect but refuses to acknowledge it.

Regards,

U2

kahlil88 · Answer

So I take it there's no fix, short of replacing the BIOS chip?

Latitude

Latitude E6430 suddenly won't POST

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