Precision 3420 won't power-on long enough to boot?

Hello,

and sorry to hear about the family issue. 

First thing, try putting a new cr2032 cmos battery... it could have discharged (and not be new from the start), leading to weird behaviors.

If that doesn't work, you could try with just one ram installed.

Erm lets say this is an edit

Yes, the ram should not be ECC in this specific case. The 3420 can use i3 i5 i7 and xeon e3 as cpus. The xeon requires ecc, while the others do not.

Same here, sorry to hear the pandemic had an effect.

What CPU do you have?  I3 I5 I7 will have onboard graphics.

Regardless of RAM or CPU, you should be able to access BIOS and the Boot &.Diagnostics Menu.  Don't wait for a keyboard light or Dell logo when repeatedly pressing F2 or F12.  If you could reach the F12 Boot Menu, you could run diagnostics.  Quick diagnostics may show something with a non-functioning system.  Otherwise, full diagnostics would need to be ran, which could take a few hours.

I'd still replace the battery first as mazzina suggested.  A bad battery will cause all sorts of seemingly unrelated bizarre problems.  Refurbishers don't always replace it.

If you still can't access BIOS or Boot Menu, you may have a bad MB.

Understood, 3 Argentum, and thanks for the confirmation on that fact.

@lowvirtualmemory don't worry too much about the nvme not having a thermal pad. 

Thanks for your response, 3 Argentum! For some reason, the thought of replacing the CMOS battery hadn't even occurred to me. But that's why I posted to begin with, namely because I knew I was WAY out of my computer-illiterate league on this situation. I should have a CR2032 by tomorrow evening and will replace my old one first thing. I'd actually thought of pulling the RAM on my remaining desktop (Optiplex 980) but quickly realized it was different in both pin-count and architecture (ddr3 vs ddr4). One other thing I meant to mention in my post of last night is the fact that I noticed the NVMe drive lacked any kind of thermal pad when I pulled it to clean the pins on it. According to the online Dell spec sheet for the Precision 3420, there should have been one present. I guess I should add that to my list of concerns, namely the possibility that the NVMe is toast. But I don't know whether that should keep the 3420 from posting a BIOS.

Finally, thanks for the kindness of your thoughts regarding my family's issue with Covid-19 last year. I'm thankful that things finally turned out well in the end. I know that wasn't the case with quite a few other families. I personally was needed as a pallbearer several times this past winter and spring. But I digress from the subject at hand. Thanks again for you help!

Thanks for replying so quickly, brad! My 3420 has the 6th Gen i5-6500 3.2 GHz cpu. That's what I'd understood as well from the online Dell spec sheet for the 3420--that it had onboard graphics. I should have a new CMOS to try by tomorrow afternoon. As far as my attempts at accessing the BIOS with a keyboard, I was waiting until the power-on indicator lit and I heard the fan & HDD noise (or at least what sounds to me like hard-drive noise) before pressing the F2 key. So I will try your suggestion in an hour or so and start pressing F2/F12 as soon as I press the power-on button. I guess I was thinking the BIOS wouldn't display until the power level rose to an adequate amount to display it.

I don't know whether this fact is relevant at all to the BIOS not posting thus far (probably not). But, as I noted in a reply to 3-Argentum (I posted a couple of pics as well), I noticed that the NVMe drive lacked any thermal pad whatsoever when I pulled it recently to clean the pins. According to the Dell spec sheet for the 3420, there should have been one on the NVMe. Though I'm not familiar with that type of ssd, I do remember hearing somewhere that those types of ssd's could run pretty hot. I guess I'm wondering at this point whether it might have become overheated due to lacking a thermal pad. But whether that is or isn't the case, It doesn't seem that fact would keep the BIOS from posting (would it?).

Should I manage to get the BIOS to post via your suggestion, what type of specific diagnostics (full & quick) are you referring to in particular, and by what method should I run it (Optical, USB, etc.) if there isn't enough power-on to do so? Are you referring to a diagnostic software download of some type? Please forgive me if such is a dumb question, for I freely admit I'm unlearned when it comes to this level of PC literacy :-). Thanks again for your help!

Thanks for your thoughts about the thermal pad, mazzinia. I wasn't sure whether one was crucial or simply recommended. But it's all pointless now, as I just discovered what's wrong with my Precision 3420 about an hour ago when I plugged it back into power and pushed the power-on button. For the first time, I received a series of blinking amber indicator lights from the power-on button--two short amber > a short pause > one short amber > longer pause, followed by repetition of the same pattern.I didn't really need to look up the error codes on the Dell site to guess that was code for MB failure. It makes sense now. I guess the MB was just about to expire the first time I tried it a few weeks ago, and that was the reason it wouldn't stay powered-on or post, etc. Thing is, I've only tried powering it on about nine or ten times in entirety since I first tried it about a month ago. So it basically had to be nearly DOA on arrival. I was careful to purchase from a seller with great feedback rating--100% on nearly 400 transactions. But I guess, as Bob Dylan's song goes, "The times, they are a changin'". I don't know for a fact that the seller knew the state of the pc when he/she shipped it. But if not, who would?

I'm going to try to buy a cheap laptop (maybe something like a 4th Gen Latitude, etc.) locally from C-list (yeah, I know that's risky as well) if I can for backup to my Optiplex 980 until my student loans are renewed for the fall semester. I can try to sell the Precision for spare parts on eBay, or at least the RAM and perhaps the NVMe and HDD. But I don't really have any way of knowing whether they are any good, either, as I was never able to try them. Oh, well, I still feel blessed this evening, regardless.+.

Thanks to you and all who offered the help they could regarding my Precision 3420. It was much appreciated!

Would you try to remove the power plug and hold the power button for 15-20 sec , then I connect it again and try to see if it boots (or stops blinking) ?

Thanks, Argentum. Your suggestion was certainly worth a try, which I did several times a few minutes ago but without any luck. I also removed the side cover and checked for any visible signs of a swollen capacitor or burnt spot anywhere on the MB, as I've repaired a couple of dvd players in past years by soldering in replacement caps that had went south. But I saw no visible signs of anything like that. There's just not very many capacitors or resistors on a pc board anymore, it seems. I went ahead and cancelled my CMOS order, as I read enough posts on this site and another one to discern that a failed battery won't trigger a bad MB code. Thanks again for hanging in there with me and offering your suggestions. They were all relevant and worthy of trying.

To still answer your question from before, if you were able to access the boot & diagnostics menu, you'd simply click on diagnostics and it gives you the option for either quick or full.  Choose one and a way it goes.

Don't know, a bad cmos battery can cause a lot of weird things. 

Plus if that's the wrong kind of ram...

Thanks again, brad. But I think I discovered the problem (see my last post to mazzinia) last night when plugged the 3420 into power in order to try your suggestion about not delaying any before pressing F2/F12 keys upon pushing the pc power button. For the first time, I received the 2 >1 amber light blink code for MB failure (according to online Dell spec sheet error codes). I'm still going to try the CMOS battery as it's too late to cancel that, but I don't have any hope that will help anything. I'll probably end up listing this 3420 on ebay in a couple of weeks to salvage what little I can from the most disastrous purchase I ever made on the site since the year I first joined it in 2005. Thanks so much for trying to help, though!

Shoot, too bad it didn't work out.  If you want to go this route, you'll find good deals & bargains on 3420 MB's on eBay. 

Brad, I'd never even considered trying to replace an MB on my own--that is until I read your last response and went to the site you suggested & saw some prices, etc. I'd just assumed that a replacement MB would be far too expensive and beyond my limited capabilities to do. But after looking at prices and doing quite a bit of "how to" reading online this morning, I've decided to give it a go! After all, I don't have that much to risk anymore by trying. I've done a lot of things in my life that I initially thought I didn't have a prayer of accomplishing. I think the fact that I try to be meticulous and exacting at something like this and take a ton of digital photos so that I can back-track out of trouble if needed (like the ones I posted here) will maybe work to my advantage.

I know from my reading of this morning that it's crucially important to get as exact a match as possible for my current, bad MB so that I won't run into system compatibility issues later (non-booting or BIOS-settings issues, etc.). Other than things like model #, CPU, RAM, etc., might I ask you if there's any specific detail you feel I should concentrate on or be particularly careful about when trying to match my MB board? And thanks again for your help and for posting the site with the MB's for sale!