Dead Machine, doesn't boot past Bios

Question

I have a Dell Dimension 8400 with Windows XP Media center.  Today the machine died and will no longer boot.  It freezes during the Bios boot and does not continue.  The lights on the back panel are A, B, C are green, D is yellow.  I looked this up in the manual and it states that is an other problem and to check all of the connections on the mother board.  I have done this, I've taken out all of the add in cards, reseated all of the memory and all of the connections.  The hard drive spins up, butthe machine still will not boot past the Bios.   Does this mean the motherboard or cpu is dead? Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Davet50 · Answer

will it allow you to boot into the Bios? if so check all the setting or revert to factory defaults. if you cannot look in your manual to see if there is a procedure to reset your CMOS. and try that..

kwhom · Answer

It won't let me boot into bios, I got it to a point now that it tells it failed during the boot at the Ith check point.  I checked the battery and it was dead and I replaced it but still will not get past the error message during the BIOS boot.

PETER345 · Answer

One thing that can happen is hanging trying to boot from a non-bootable device (e.g. a USB printer even though that sounds ridiculous). You might try disconnecting all USB devices and drives other than the HD to make sure that is not the issue.

Did you reset the CMOS settings?

Peter

Message Edited by PETER345 on 11-11-2007 09:20 PM

PETER345 · Answer

If you can (or could) change the CMOS settings, then the clear jumper was not in the clear position. The docs could be backward. Normally you move the jumper to the other position and then back again.

You could be right that the motherboard has died.

You can check with Dell spare parts. Others have bought motherboards from Dell. You can also buy them from online vendors.

Try here.

Peter

kwhom · Answer

I tried resetting the CMOS, but the jumper on the Board as it came from the factory was already set on the clear CMOS jumpers. I moved the jumper to the other two pins to see if it would reset and boot, but nothing happened.  If I leave the jumper on the pins that it should be on for running, the board does not boot at all.  Currently there is nothing connected to the machine at all.  All of the PCI cards are removed except the video card and all the drives are removed except the hard drive.  I do believe the motherboard on this dell has croaked.  Is there a site on Dell that will sell replacement motherboards. I happened across a link to it on one of the forums but have lost it.  Thanks.

droubay · Answer

You also may want to look up the beep codes depending on how many beeps it makes when booting up (or attempting to boot up)

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Dead Machine, doesn't boot past Bios

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