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March 19th, 2026 21:51
xps 8950 No power, no boot. Rapid blinking, faint amber.
so i have two m2 ssd drives, 1tb and .5tb. the smaller one is the drive c for boot and it came with the computer. i decided that i wanted the larger one for the system drive. my plan was to swap the two of them out. i use the usb drive to boot to clonezilla and copy the smaller one with an image onto the larger one. so i shut down the computer, and unplug the power. then opening the case, and then i took the two drives Out. i put the larger one in the place where the smaller one was and i left the smaller one out and put it aside. my plan was to reformat it once i was sure that the computer would boot from the larger. it did not.
when i plug the power back, a green light flashed on on the back of the power supply. nothing happened when i pushed the power button. looking closely at The power button, I can see that there is a faint amber light blinking rapidly. And when I push the power button, the amber grows a little bit brighter, but it still flashes, and the computer does nothing.
i decided to take the large drive out and put the original drive back in its place and try again. no change.
Okay. so i take out the soundcard, the video board and the memory. no change. i put one memory card back, and still no change. i take out the button battery and hold the power button for a minute and put it back in and try again.
The power supply is an upgraded one that I got about three months ago because i put a higher power video board in. i still have the old power supply so i tried putting that one back in to see if that would work better but it didn't make any difference.
i'm worried now to suppose that i might have shorted the motherboard. is there anything else i can try?
Hythloday
2 Intern
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27 Posts
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March 31st, 2026 12:41
So we can say for sure that the problem was a bad motherboard due to butterfingers. I bought a used, ninety dollar motherboard from ebay, and although it was stripped of all its valuables, I was able to transfer everything off the old board and put it on to the recently purchased. I went ahead and put my clone ssd In the seat for the system. It started up just fine, and everything works now.
(edited)
Hythloday
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27 Posts
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April 18th, 2026 20:01
Just to conclude the issue. The motherboard that I bought used from eBay, it is still working without any issues. I got the two hard drives arranged as I had wanted from the start. Logging on with my microsoft account was a little bit awkward at first, but it got working in about a week. My expensive dragon speaking 16 refused to boot up and say that I had exhausted the activations. I sent an email to the company and they were able to reset my activations. So everything is working. A few weeks now without any issues.
I will say that putting in one of those microprocessors like the i7 It's very nerve-racking for the first time.
DELL-Daniel V
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March 19th, 2026 22:06
Contact Dell GHN (Get Help Now) chat technical support Monday through Friday. Click the blue "Get Help Now" on the right to start a private live chat session. Share the private Service Tag with them so that they can verify the ownership and warranty status. This will also generate a unique Technical Support case for your unique Service Tag. If already out of warranty, click here for the Dell out of warranty offerings.
Unfortunately, it does sound like the SSD has caused the motherboard to short out. So there would be 2 issues here. It's hard to say if the newer SSD was DOA, or if it just caused an independent failure at the slot. You would need to test the new SSD in either a different motherboard, or preferably with a USB m.2 adapter to see if its still detected. The adapter would be best so that you don't short out another board if this drive is the issue. If still detected, then you may still be able to reuse it in a new system. If not detected, then I'd recommend exchanging it with the seller you got it from.
As to the XPS, how many times is the power button flashing amber? Is it flashing white as well or no? It should ideally flash in a pattern indicating the no post failure. That said, if you didn't even get a post code with the memory fully removed, then that would typically indicate a bad board. I'd check out this article here for additional no power troubleshooting.
Hythloday
2 Intern
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27 Posts
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March 19th, 2026 22:27
well the newer larger board actually has been in the machine in the second slot for a good three or four months without any problems.
As for the blinking light, i studied all of the blinking codes listed in the service manual carefully, And what it is doing is not anything like that stuff. . it's just a rapid and feint amber light. If i had to describe it it sort of reminds of the blinking at the network jack.
Alright, so it's not under warranty anymore. so maybe i'll need a new motherboard. i'm going to try to economize this. i've got nice hardware in this machine and it will have to go somewhere else if i cant get a motherboard for a reasonable price.
DELL-Daniel V
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March 20th, 2026 14:21
@Hythloday
Gotcha, so the larger SSD is good. Honestly not sure what could have caused it to short out when moved to a different slot. The only other thing I can recommend here is a real time clock reset:
Note: Holding the power button for longer than 40 seconds will abort the RTC reset.
Should that be unresponsive, then I'd call it at the motherboard.
Hythloday
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27 Posts
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March 20th, 2026 20:49
@DELL-Daniel V
I tried the test that you described but to no avail. I'm giving up on the motherboard. I just bought
a new motherboard built for the same family of processors, and I think I have enough spare parts around the house to get it up and running again provided that I can carefully remove the processor and other stuff.
The only thing at this point that I would like to know is whether I transfer this software license for windows from the xps. I know that sometimes it doesn't work when you're buying from Dell originally.
O k so this was a learning experience for me. In case anybody else finds an interest in this topic, for history's sake I will say that I did rush this job. I unplugged the power cable before getting inside but I didn't unplug anything else. I also tried to take the drives out sideways rather than putting the computer on its side. I should have removed my PCI sound card that was halfway obscuring
access to the drive. Due to the goofy angle of attack I also dropped some things in the machine and bumped some things with my forceps. I suppose that I had opened the machine up so many times in the past without any incident, that I just got arrogant and careless, and this time it didn't work out, as a result.
DELL-Daniel V
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March 20th, 2026 21:01
@Hythloday
Typically our Dell motherboards are what hold the activation key for Windows. So when the SSD is moved to a new board, Windows normally doesn't have any fuss about activation since the key is already injected and activates automatically. If you're going to a non-dell board, then I'm actually not too certain on how the Windows activation is going to go there. You may end up needing to purchase a new activation key.
Hythloday
2 Intern
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27 Posts
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March 21st, 2026 17:11
@DELL-Daniel V
That is a very useful note to have about the motherboard. I was going to buy a brand-new do it yourself motherboard, And it is still on its way, but after what you said, I went ahead and picked up off of eBay a used motherboard that has been tested and stripped of all its valuables. If it works, it will be much cheaper and less effort than building a new system.