Hello everybody,

I have this problem with my DELL VOSTRO 3500; when I press the power button the PC doesn't start up, instead the led flashes (together with the play/pause and the frontal power ones).

I already read and tried what is described here and here, with no success. In fact I didn't try to use another AC adapter/power cable, but I'm not sure that the problem is there. In my case the led flash every 5 seconds when I plug the power, while with the battery its only one time.

I also tried to remove parts one at the time: HDD, optical drive, RAM, button buttery and finally the entire palm rest, but I couldn't see anything relevant. Nothing changed.

Thing that might be a lot relevant is that I smell something like burnt plastic near the  network connector and USB port.

I bought this PC during winter 2010, and it had already a problem with the motherboard, that however had been changed immediately. I don't know if 3/4 years are a lot for such a machine (considering that I use it most of the time), however I also recently had a HDD failure, so I substitute the original one with a SAMSUNG 840 EvO SSD 2.5''. I'm like loosing trust in the product.

I'm asking if there is a way for me to fix the issue. If instead is a problem with the motherboard, how much would it cost to change/repair it? Any other suggestions or advice is more than welcomed.

Thanks for the attention,

Best
Alex