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A Reference Guide for Latitude Laptop and Tablet Diagnostic Indicators

Summary: This article provides details about the diagnostic Light Emitting Diode (LED) codes for Latitude laptops and tablets.

This article applies to This article does not apply to This article is not tied to any specific product. Not all product versions are identified in this article.
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Instructions

Dell Latitude laptops have various integrated visible and audible diagnostic indicators to help identify possible failure of hardware components causing specific symptoms. Most of these symptoms are related to the laptop not being able to boot to Windows, displaying a black screen from startup, and so on.

Note: Some laptops use a sequence of audible beeps to give an indication about possible hardware failure. See the beep codes table in this article to diagnose and troubleshoot your laptop.

Various reasons for laptop experiencing startup issues can be found in the following article. This is in addition to the information and solutions offered in the section below.

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Latitude Battery Status

Latitude Battery Charge led

The battery charge LED light turns white or amber to indicate the power status and remaining battery charge. See the tables below.

Table 1: Battery charge LED status lights on current Latitude laptops
LED Light Description
1 Battery status light

Latitude battery LED state

Note: Learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues for battery or battery changing issues.

If the laptop is connected to an electrical outlet, the battery light operates as follows:

Table 2: Battery LED status if AC adapter is connected to current Latitude laptops.
System Power State Battery Charge Level LED Behavior

S0 - S5

 Fully Charged Off

S0 - S5

Less than Fully Charged

 White

If the laptop is running on a battery, the power or battery light operates as follows:

Table 3: Battery and power LED status if the AC adapter is not connected on current Latitude laptops.
System Power State Battery Charge Level LED Behavior
S0 - S5 11% to Fully Charged Off

S0 - S5

 Less than 10%

Solid Amber
Table 4: Power states in current Latitude laptops
System Power State Description
S0 (On) The laptop is powered on
S4 (Hibernate) The laptop is almost turned off, context data is written to the hard drive.
S5 (Off) The laptop is powered down or turned off.
Note: Learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues. Also, learn How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer to identify potential hardware failure. For more information about battery warranty support, see article Dell Laptop Battery Warranty Support.

The battery charge LED is located on the side of the laptop (as shown in the section below).

Latitude Battery LED

Note: Laptops with an integrated fingerprint reader on the power button do not contain a power button LED.
Table 5: Power button and battery charge light
LED Light Description
1 Battery Charge status light

Diagnostic LEDs on Latitude Laptops (2023 to present models)

NOTE: These laptops rely on the battery charge LED blinking an amber or white pattern to determine failures listed in the following table:

Note:

The blinking patterns consist of two sets of numbers that represent: (First Group: Amber blinks, Second Group: White blinks).

  • First Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a brief pause with the LED off at the interval of 1.5 seconds in amber color.
  • Second Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a longer pause before the next cycle starts again at the interval of 1.5 seconds in white color.
For example: A No Memory error is detected (2,3). The battery charge LED blinks two times in amber color followed by a pause, and then blinks three times in white color. The power LED will pause for 3 seconds before the next cycle repeats itself again.

The following table provides information about the amber and white blinking patterns with possible troubleshooting steps:

Table 6A: LED flash sequences and their corresponding fault descriptions for these Latitude laptops
LED Flash Sequence Fault Description Faults
1,1 Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Detection Failure Motherboard Error
1,2 SPI Flash Failure Motherboard Error
1,5 Embedded Controller (EC) unable to program i-Fuse Motherboard Error
1,6 EC Code flow errors Power Issue
2,1 Central Processor Unit (CPU) Possible CPU Failure
2,2 Motherboard Basic input Output Setup (BIOS) Motherboard Covers BIOS Corruption, or Read-Only Memory (ROM) Error
2,3 Memory No memory or Random Access Memory (RAM) detected
2,4 Memory Memory or RAM failure
2,5 Memory Invalid Memory Installed
2,6 Motherboard Chipset Motherboard or Chipset Error
2,7 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) LCD Failure
2,8 LCD LCD Power Rail Failure
3,1 Real-Time Clock (RTC) Power Failure Complementary Metal-Oxide Semi-Conductor (CMOS) Battery Failure
3,2 Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) or Video PCI, or Video Card or Chip Failure
3,3 BIOS Recovery 1 Recovery Image Not Found
3,4 BIOS Recovery 2 Recovery Image Found But Invalid
3,5 Power Rail Failure EC ran into power sequencing failure.
3,6 System Management BIOS (SBIOS) Flash Corruption Flash corruption detected by SBIOS
3,7 Management Engine (ME) Error Timeout waiting on ME to reply to Host Embedded Controller Interface (HECI)
Table 6B: Extra LED flash sequences and their corresponding fault descriptions for applicable Latitude laptops
LED Flash Sequence Fault Description Faults
4,1 Temporary Battery Failure 4,1 code is valid for thirty seconds. If the problem does not resolve itself within this time, the battery transitions to Permanent Battery Failure and the Amber Light keeps blinking which indicates Battery failure 
4,3 LCD Panel Failure (potential cracked panel) Panel Failure
4,4 Power Rail Failure at the Motherboards side Motherboard and Cable failure
4,5 LCD Panel Failure and Power Rail Failure at the Motherboards side Motherboard, Panel, and Cable failure
4,6 Display Cable (EDP) Failure Reconnect the cable and test if the fault continues. If the fault continues cable failure.
Note: If the code is different than those listed above, contact Dell technical support. Alternatively you can learn more on the following article: How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer To help identify potential hardware failures.

These laptops rely on the battery charge LED blinking an amber or white pattern to determine failures listed in the following table:

Note:

The blinking patterns consist of two sets of numbers that represent: (First Group: Amber blinks, Second Group: White blinks).

  • First Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a brief pause with the LED off at the interval of 1.5 seconds in amber color.
  • Second Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a longer pause before the next cycle starts again at the interval of 1.5 seconds in white color.
For example: A No Memory error is detected (2,3). The battery charge LED blinks two times in amber color followed by a pause, and then blinks three times in white color. The power LED will pause for 3 seconds before the next cycle repeats itself again.

The following table provides information about the amber and white blinking patterns with possible troubleshooting steps:

Table 7: LED flash sequences and their corresponding fault descriptions for Latitude laptops
LED Flash Sequence Fault Description Faults
2,1 CPU Possible CPU Failure
2,2 Motherboard BIOS Motherboard, Covers BIOS Corruption, or ROM Error
2,3 Memory No memory/RAM detected
2,4 Memory Memory/RAM failure
2,5 Memory Invalid Memory Installed
2,6 Motherboard Chipset Motherboard/Chipset Error
2,7 LCD LCD Failure
2,8 LCD LCD Power Rail Failure
3,1 RTC Power Failure CMOS Battery Failure
3,2 PCI/Video PCI or Video Card/Chip Failure
3,3 BIOS Recovery 1 Recovery Image Not Found
3,4 BIOS Recovery 2 Recovery Image Found But Invalid
3,5 Power Rail Failure EC ran into power sequencing failure.
3,6 SBIOS Flash Corruption Flash corruption detected by SBIOS
3,7 ME Error Timeout waiting on ME to reply to HECI
Note: If the code is different than those listed above, contact Dell technical support. Alternatively you can learn more on the following article: How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer. To help identify potential hardware failures.

The power button LED is located near the top right-side of the laptop as shown below:

Latitude LED power

Diagnostic LEDs on Latitude Laptops (2015 to 2017 models)

These laptops rely on the power button LED blinking an amber or white pattern to determine failures listed in the following table:

Note:

The blinking patterns consist of two sets of numbers represented by (First Group: Amber blinks, Second Group: White blinks).

  • First Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a brief pause with the LED off at the interval of 1.5 seconds in amber color.
  • Second Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a longer pause before the next cycle starts again at the interval of 1.5 seconds in white color.
For example: A No Memory error is detected (2,3). The power button LED blinks two times of amber color followed by a pause, and then blinks three times of white color. The power LED will pause for 3 seconds before the next cycle repeats itself again.

The following table depicts the amber and white blinking patterns with possible troubleshooting steps:

Table 8: LED flash sequences and their corresponding fault descriptions for Latitude laptops (2015 to 2017 models)
LED Flash Sequence Fault Description Faults
2,1 CPU Possible CPU Failure
2,2 Motherboard BIOS Motherboard, Covers BIOS Corruption, or ROM Error
2,3 Memory No memory/RAM detected
2,4 Memory Memory/RAM failure
2,5 Memory Invalid Memory Installed
2,6 Motherboard Chipset Motherboard/Chipset Error
2,7 LCD LCD Failure
3,1 RTC Power Failure CMOS Battery Failure
3,2 PCI/Video PCI or Video Card/Chip Failure
3,3 BIOS Recovery 1 Recovery Image Not Found
3,4 BIOS Recovery 2 Recovery Image Found But Invalid
Note: If the code is different than those listed above, contact Dell technical support. Alternatively you can learn more from the following article: How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer. To help identify potential hardware failures.
Note: Learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues.

Battery light status on Latitude E-series laptops

LED

The power or battery LED light turns white or amber to indicate the power status and remaining battery charge. See the tables below.

Table 9: Status of LED lights on Latitude E-series laptops.
LED Light Description
1 Power Light
2 Hard drive light
3 Battery status light
4 WiFi light

Battery LED light status

Table 10: Battery LED light status on Latitude E-series laptops
Battery State LED Behavior Next Steps

An unauthenticated or unsupported non-Dell AC adapter is attached to your laptop.

Alternately blinking amber light and white light

 Try reseating the AC adapter or try a 'known good' adapter - if the fault persists, consider replacing the AC adapter.

Temporary battery failure with AC adapter present

Alternately blinking amber light with steady white light

 Try reseating the battery. If the issue persists, try swapping the battery with another laptop. If the issue persists, the battery may require replacement. For more information about battery warranty, see our Dell Laptop Battery Warranty Support.

Fatal battery failure with AC adapter present

Constantly blinking amber light

 Try two-way swapping the battery with a 'known good' one and see if the fault follows the battery. If the issue persists, the battery may require replacement. For more info on battery warranty, see our Dell Laptop Battery Warranty Support.

Battery in full charge mode with AC adapter present

Light off.

 No further action required

Battery in charge mode with AC adapter present

White light on

 No further action required
Note: Learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues for battery or battery changing issues.

If the laptop is connected to an electrical outlet, the power or battery light operates as follows:

Table 11: Power and battery light status if the Latitude E-series laptop is connected to AC adapter.
Power State Charging status LED Behavior

On

Any (0-100%)

Solid white

Standby

Any (0-100%)

Breathe white (slow increase/decrease in illumination).

Off, hibernate.

>90% charge

Off

Off, hibernate.

= 90% charge

Solid white

If the laptop is running on a battery, the power or battery light operates as follows:

Table 12: Power and battery LED light status if the Latitude E-series laptop is not connected to AC adapter.
Power State Remaining battery power LED Behavior

On

= 10% charge

Solid white

On

10% charge

Solid amber

Standby

= 10% charge

Breathe white (slow increase/decrease in illumination).

Standby

10% charge

Solid amber

Off, hibernate.

Any (0-100%)

Off
Note: Learn How to Check Battery Health Status on Dell Laptops. Also, learn How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer to identify potential hardware failure. For more information about battery warranty, see article Dell Laptop Battery Warranty Support.

The three LED indicator lights are located near the front, right-side of the laptop as shown in the image below.

LED indicator 2008 to 2015 models

Diagnostic LEDs on Latitude laptops (2008 to 2015 models)

These laptops rely on the battery LED light blinking in an amber or white pattern to determine failures listed in the following table:

Note:

The blinking patterns consist of two sets of numbers that represent: (First Group: Amber blinks, Second Group: White blinks).

  • First Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a brief pause with the LED off at the interval of 1.5 seconds in amber color.
  • Second Group: The LED blinks 1 to nine times followed by a longer pause before the next cycle starts again at the interval of 1.5 seconds in white color.
For example, No Memory detected (2,3), Battery LED blinks two times of amber color followed by a pause, and then blinks three times of white color. The Battery LED will pause for 3 seconds before the next cycle repeat itself again.

The following table depicts the amber and white blinking patterns with possible troubleshooting steps.

Table 13: LED flash sequence and their corresponding fault description for Latitude laptops (2008 to 2015 models)
LED Flash Sequence Fault Description Faults
2,1 CPU Possible CPU Failure
2,2 Motherboard BIOS Motherboard, Covers BIOS Corruption, or ROM Error
2,3 Memory No memory/RAM detected
2,4 Memory Memory/RAM failure
2,5 Memory Invalid Memory Installed
2,6 Motherboard Chipset Motherboard/Chipset Error
2,7 LCD LCD Failure
3,1 RTC Power Failure CMOS Battery Failure
3,2 PCI/Video PCI or Video Card/Chip Failure
3,3 BIOS Recovery 1 Recovery Image Not Found
3,4 BIOS Recovery 2 Recovery Image Found But Invalid
3,5 Power Rail Failure EC ran into power sequencing failure.
3,6 SBIOS Flash Corruption Flash corruption detected by SBIOS
3,7 ME Error Timeout waiting on ME to reply to HECI message
Note: If the code is different than those listed above, contact Dell technical support or learn How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer.

Diagnostic indicators on earlier models

LED indicator

Table 14: System LED status on earlier models of Latitude laptops
LED Light Description
1 Power Light
2 Hard drive light
3 Battery status light
4 WiFi light

Here is how to read the laptop LED codes when a possible error occurs.

Table 15: System LED status, their corresponding fault description, and next steps for earlier models of Latitude laptops
Storage LED
Storage LED 		Battery LED
Battery LED 		Wireless LED
Wireless LED 		Fault Description Next Steps
Blinking Solid Solid A possible processor failure has occurred. Contact Dell Support
Solid Blinking Solid The memory modules are detected but has encountered an error. Troubleshoot Memory
Blinking Blinking Blinking A system board failure has occurred. Contact Dell Support
Blinking Blinking Solid A possible graphics card/video failure has occurred. Troubleshoot Video
Blinking Blinking Off System failed on hard drive initialization OR System failed in Option ROM initialization. Troubleshoot Hard Drive
Blinking Off Blinking The USB controller encountered a problem during initialization. Check ports for damage and remove any USB devices. Troubleshoot Ports
Solid Blinking Blinking No memory modules are installed/detected. Troubleshoot Memory
Blinking Solid Blinking The LCD encountered a problem during initialization. Troubleshoot Video
Off Blinking Blinking The modem is preventing the laptop from completing POST. Try reseating or removing any Modem cards.
Off Blinking Off Memory failed to initialize, or memory is unsupported. Troubleshoot Memory
Note: Learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues. Also, learn How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer to identify potential hardware failure.

Battery Light Status

If the laptop is connected to an electrical outlet, the battery light operates as follows:

  • Solid Green — The battery is charging.
  • Flashing Green — The battery is almost fully charged.

If the laptop is running on a battery, the battery light operates as follows:

  • Off — The battery is adequately charged (or the laptop is turned off)
  • Flashing orange — The battery charge is low.
  • Solid orange — The battery charge is critically low.
Note: Learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues. Also, learn How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer to identify potential hardware failure.

For more information about battery warranty, see our Dell Laptop Battery Warranty Support.

LED Error Codes

The following table shows the possible LED codes that may display in a no-POST situation.

Table 16: LED codes, their corresponding fault description, and next steps for Latitude D-series laptops (models prior to 2008)
Flash Code Description Next Step
Flash Code processor The microcontroller is handing control of the laptop to the processor. This code persists if no processor is detected. 1. Reseat the processor.
2. Replace the system board.
3. Replace the processor.
Flash Code memory modules The memory has encountered an error. 1. Reseat the memory modules.
2. Replace the memory modules.
3. Replace the system board.
Flash Code system board A system board component is faulty. Replace the system board.
Flash Code video card The video card is preventing the laptop from completing POST. 1. Replace the video card.
2. Replace the system board.
Flash Code keyboard The keyboard is preventing the laptop from completing POST. 1. Reseat the keyboard cable.
2. Replace the keyboard.
3. Replace the system board.
Flash Code USB The USB controller encountered a problem during initialization. 1. Remove any USB devices.
2. Replace the system board.
Flash Code SODIMMs No SODIMMs are installed. 1. Install the memory modules.
2. Reseat the memory modules.
3. Replace the memory modules.
4. Replace the system board.
Flash Code LCD The LCD encountered a problem during initialization. 1. Reseat the LCD cable.
2. Replace the LCD panel.
3. Replace the video card.
Flash Code modem The modem is preventing the laptop from completing POST. 1. Reseat the modem.
2. Replace the modem.
3. Replace the system board.
Note: If the code is different than those listed above, contact Dell technical support. Alternatively you can learn more on the following article: How to Run a Preboot Diagnostic Test on a Dell Computer. To help identify potential hardware failures.

Latitude Tablet Beep Codes

The laptop may emit a series of beeps during start-up if the display cannot show errors or problems. These series of beeps called beep codes, identify various problems.

Table 17: Beeps codes and their corresponding fault description for Latitude tablets
Beep Code
(repetitive
short beeps)		 Fault Description Suggested Remedy
1 BIOS ROM checksum in progress or failure System board failure, covers BIOS corruption, or ROM error.
2 Memory No memory/RAM detected
3
  • Chipset Error (North and South bridge error, DMA/IMR/Timer error)
  • Time-Of-Day Clock test failure
  • Gate A20 failure
  • Super I/O chip failure
  • Test failure of the keyboard controller
 System board failure
4 RAM Read/Write failure Memory/RAM failure
5 Real-time clock power fails
  1. Reseat the CMOS battery connection.
  2. If the problem persists, possible CMOS battery failure or system board failure
6 Video BIOS Test Failure Video card/chip failure
7 CPU-cache test failure Processor failure
8 LCD LCD failure

Latitude Tablet LED Error Codes

Diagnostic LED code communicated using the Power Button LED or agreed upon alternate LED. The Power Button LED shall blink the corresponding LED codes for the corresponding fault condition.

Note: For example, No Memory detected, the power button LED blinks two times followed by a pause, blinks two times, pause, and so on. This pattern continues until the laptop is turned off.

Top View

Table 18: LED codes and their corresponding fault description for Latitude tablets
LED Code Fault Description Suggested Remedy
1 System Board: BIOS ROM failure System board, covers BIOS corruption or ROM error.
2 Memory No memory/RAM detected
3
  • System board failure
  • Chipset Error
  • Clock failure
  • Gate A20 failure
  • Super I/O failure
  • Keyboard controller failure
 System board failure
4 Memory Memory/RAM failure
5 Real-time clock failure
  1. Reseat the CMOS battery connection.
  2. If the problem persists, possible battery failure or system board failure
6 Video BIOS Video card/chip failure
7 CPU Processor failure
8 LCD LCD failure

What to do next? - If the status lights described in this article indicates possible failure of the battery, learn How to Troubleshoot Dell Laptop Battery Issues.

If the error code is different than those listed in this article, contact Dell Technical Support.

Affected Products

Latitude, Latitude Tablets
Article Properties
Article Number: 000127927
Article Type: How To
Last Modified: 18 Mar 2025
Version:  13
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