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October 15th, 2019 06:00
Problem with e6420 not turning on
I have a e6420 that will not turn on. Symptoms are flashing power light after pressing briefly to power up, clicking hard drive sometimes, think the CMOS battery is dead because clock was not correct. I have gotten it to power up a few times and it worked but now it is completely dead again. What should i try first? Will the PC start up with the hard drive removed or the memory removed? I am not sure if either of those is the issue, but the blinking power light is supposedly a memory error. Maybe I should re-seat both?
supertrucker39
2 Posts
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October 15th, 2019 07:00
Why does it power on 3 times? Is the hard drive clicking just a symptom and not an actual problem?
U2CAMEB4ME
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6.2K Posts
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October 15th, 2019 07:00
Welcome to the Dell Community @supertrucker39
Try re-seating the memory first.
If that does not work then try this.
Disconnect the CMOS battery and then try to boot.
Dell Latitude E6420 and E6420 ATG Owner's Manual:
https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_latitude_laptop/latitude-e6420_owner%27s%20manual_en-us.pdf
With the CMOS battery disconnected connect the AC adapter.
It should try to power-on by itself. "Up to 3 times"
Best regards,
U2
U2CAMEB4ME
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6.2K Posts
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October 15th, 2019 08:00
@supertrucker39
Disconnecting the Coin Cell battery clears the CMOS.
After connecting the AC adapter it will automatically try to power on.
But it could take up to 3 times to do so.
After this the BIOS/CMOS battery can be re-connected.
The hard drive clicking is caused by the Head Stack Assembly going out to read the platters and doing an emergency park because it ran into a problem.
Hence the clicking sound.
That is a good indicator that the HDD has failed.
Regards,
U2