Latitude E6430 Won't Turn On/POST

Question

For some reason when I go turn on my E6430, I can hear the hard drive spin up and the optical drive make some noises but it never posts and shows a black screen with nothing happening. When I press the power button a second time, the fans ramp up then shut down. After the power button is pressed, the HDD light and the caps lock light briefly light up then shut off and I am left with the power light and nothing else happening on the 3 diagnostic LED's. Removed RAM and CMOS battery but same result. Also removed battery and held power button down but nothing got fixed. Oddly enough sometimes when I remove the RAM I get the diagnostic LED combination for no ram but most of the time it doesn't happen and none of the diagnostic LEDs are lit.

Edit: Got it to boot up once but then after that it never came back. Attempted to reflash the BIOS and it didn't fix anything. It even said Bios flash successful but it still won't boot and only the power light lights up.

Also sometimes, I can get it to boot to the Diagnostic screen while holding the power button while plugging in the AC adapter but it happens rarely and attempting a reflash of the bios didn't fix anything. Diagnostics also doesn't indicate anything wrong with the computer and passess all tests.

jimmysofat6864 · Accepted Answer

For anybody else who has this problem, I was going to part out the laptop so I removed parts like the CPU, Wifi card but decided to test it out one last time and put it all back. Then it booted right up and booted up every time I pressed the power. Not sure if it was the CPU, Wi-Fi card, or the Bios flash but now it works fine now.

AdrianG001 · Answer

Try removing the CMOS battery (coin cell)  and waiting 15 minutes before reinstalling it on the motherboard. Not knowing how old that battery is, it might not be a bad idea to replace the battery after waiting 15 minutes. What kind of light pattern are you seeing now? You can also try a system reset. Disconnect the main battery and unplug the adapter. Press and hold the power button for 30 seconds. Then reconnect everything and try to boot again.

jimmysofat6864 · Answer

Tried that and I still don't see any light patterns. It's just the power light and nothing else like before. Pressing the power button ramps up the fans and shuts off the computer but even then there is no light pattern. System reset was also attempted but it didn't work.

nyc10036 · Answer

Did you put in a new CMOS battery?

Cambridgeport90 · Answer

Either that, or the board is dead. I have seen this with a couple of Latitudes; my E6530, E6540, and my 5410 did this all at different times during their lives. The former two had to have their system boards replaced, while the latter one just needed a 30 second reset as was discussed earlier.

jimmysofat6864 · Answer

Is there a way to be absolutely sure that the board is dead? I just want to be sure that it is the board that is dead before I spend some money on it.

jimmysofat6864 · Answer

Not a new battery because I tested it in another computer and it seems to work fine. Also the computer should boot up without the battery but it didn't for some reason.

Cambridgeport90 · Answer

Having it not boot without the battery connected but running off the power supply, seems very odd. Are you able to get to any of the diagnostic tools at all during the time that the device automatically shuts off, or does it power down too quickly? How is the air coming out of the exhaust? If it's cold, then that means that it's not even getting enough power to heat any of the components.

Cambridgeport90 · Answer

So it seems like the components are not able to stay on long enough to even begin to produce heat. There is clearly a bad connection somewhere. How about RAM modules? Does it work at all  any better or worse with them reconfigured? Try removing one and then try to boot the computer again; see if it runs. Then keep trying and see if any of them make a difference. Sometimes, though rarely, a bad RAM module can cause this.

jimmysofat6864 · Answer

The strange part is that when I can get it to turn on, it stays powered on without issue. It's when I shut the computer down and try to power it back on is where it gets stuck. I ran the diagnostic tool in the bios and it didn't report anything wrong with the computer. And the air that exhausted is not warm and it cool.

ejn63 · Answer

It's likely that somewhere on the system board is a bad cold solder joint that's probably part of a power circuit -- when the the board is cold, it's not making the contact it needs. Unfortunately, the only real solution is a replacement system board. Bearing in mind this is a system of about 8 years' use, that may or may not make economic sense to you.

Cambridgeport90 · Answer

Thanks for filling in what I was trying to think of but couldn't seem to logically get the words out.

jimmysofat6864 · Answer

Tested known good ram modules and swapped them out one by one and it had no effect.

jimmysofat6864 · Answer

The strange part is when I hold the power button while plugging it in, it sometimes goes into the diagnostic mode and runs the tests. And then that's when the computer gets warm and works fine. It's when I shut it down and try to boot it back up is where it gets stuck.  So the components are making contact if I am not mistaken.

gbsh · Answer

So what to do? Just to remove the parts and return them back?

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Latitude E6430 Won't Turn On/POST

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