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Go to SolutionStudio XPS 435MT, Does Not Boot
Hi,
I have an old Dell Studio XPS 435MT. I upgraded to Windows 10 and it has been running great. Yesterday, after I completed my work, I shut it down. Then when I tried to power it on later, it did boot. I checked and noticed that:
1. Light on Power Supplier is on
2. Fan is running
3. DVD ROM can be opened and closed
4. Lights on motherboard is on.
5. I removed hard drive and connected to another machine using USB, the hard drive appears to be fine.
However, I noticed that power light on keyboard is NOT on and monitor does not display anything and entered into energy saving mode after a minute (monitor itself is working fine).
Could this be power supplier issue or motherboard issue? If it is just power supplier issue, it is probably still worth repairing. If it is motherboard issue, I guess I have to give up since it is an very old machine.
Any help is appreciated.
Normally, my 435MT boots without any beep error code - does yours beep during boot and if so how many times?
Is the light on the power button solid (meaning doesn't blink) white?
At the bottom of the vertical "grill" that the power button is at the top of there's a disk activity light. It's very dim and you may need to turn down the lights to see it (on my machine, it's actually easier to see the light by peering through the left side front grill (when facing the front of the PC). Does this light flash - indicating activity - during boot? If so, for how long after boot does it continue to flash?
This may be a graphics card issue. Can you temporarily replace with another card for testing purposes? Can you boot and see the Dell Logo with the other card?
What kind/model of keyboard do you have and how is it connected to the PC? If you have a "laser" mouse (that lights up desk surface red to detect motion) and you flip it over during boot does it light up? If connected through USB at front panel does anything change if keyboard/mouse is connected to back USB ports?
No beep when the machine gets powered on.
The light on the power button is yellow initially, but quickly changes to white and then stay solid white.
Right after power button is pushed, I can see the hard drive symbol light in white at the bottom of the vertical "grill" for a short time, then it disappeared. No flashing at all after that.
Will try to find another graphic card to test it out.
It is a Dell keyboard connecting to the machine using USB port. I connect a laser mouse to front and back USB port and saw no light when flipped it over. Tried to connect keyboard and mouse to front and back USB ports and it is the same.
On my 435MT, the mouse doesn't light up until a second or so after the Dell Logo shows up. I'm thinking there's likely nothing wrong with USB power there, it's just that boot isn't getting that far. Also, generally if the 435MT detects a power problem the power button is orange and the system shuts down rather quickly to protect itself. So, I don't think you have a power supply problem, although this isn't definitive.
When was the last time you replaced the CMOS coin battery on the motherboard? If long ago or never, that might be worth replacing. While replacing it with the battery out and unplugged from A/C I'd press/hold power button several times for 30 seconds or so to drain any "flea power" and help reset CMOS.
I replaced coin battery on motherboard. Now, every time when I turn on the machine, I can hear beep several times, but still nothing displayed on monitor. I believe the beep is due to the need to reset CMOS after replacing battery. I also replaced OS hard drive with the backup clone, still the same. Looks like all the lights inside and outside are all on once the machine is powered on. That might indicate power supply is OK. Will try to swap out graphic card to test later.
If you want to keep power around ~100W or less there's a listing of new cards here which shows video card ranking including Power in Watts and performance. I'd pick something from the range of Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 4GB to Nvidia GeForce GT 1030.
Shawn Zhu
8 Posts
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Posted October 26th, 2019 04:00
I picked up a used graphics card from a junked computer, HIS Radeon HD 6850, to test if the graphics card is the root cause. Once I swapped the graphics card, the old computer is live again. Now, know for sure the old graphics card is dead. I was a little bit worried about if the existing PSU (360W) has enough power for HIS Radeon HD 6850. After running for a while, seems it is OK. Very glad the old machine is working again.
Thank you all for your help. Really appreciated for your quick response.