- Notes, cautions, and warnings
- Working on your computer
- Major components of your system
- Technology and components
- Disassembly and reassembly
- System setup
- Troubleshooting
- Dell SupportAssist Pre-boot System Performance Check diagnostics
- Power-Supply Unit Built-in Self-Test
- Real-Time Clock (RTC Reset)
- System diagnostic lights
- Diagnostic error messages
- System error messages
- Recovering the operating system
- Updating the BIOS using the USB drive in Windows
- Updating the BIOS in Windows
- Backup media and recovery options
- Wi-Fi power cycle
- Drain residual flea power (perform hard reset)
- Getting help and contacting Dell Technologies
Vostro 3681 Service Manual
System diagnostic lights
Power-supply diagnostics light
Indicates the status of the power-supply in either of the two states:
- Off: No Power
- On: Power is supplied.
Power button light
| Power button LED state | System state | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Off |
|
There is in Hibernate or Off state. |
| Solid White | S0 | Working state |
| Solid Amber | S0-S5 | Various sleep states or No POST |
| Blinking Amber/White | S0-S5 | Failure to POST |
This platform relies on the Power button LED light blinking in an amber/white pattern to determine a failure as listed in the following table:
NOTE:
The blinking patterns consists of two numbers (representing First Group: Amber blinks, Second Group: White blinks).
- First Group: The Power button LED light blinks Amber, 1 to 9 times followed by a short pause with LED off for a couple of seconds.
- Second Group: The Power button LED light then blinks White, 1 to 9 times, followed by a longer pause before the next cycle starts again after a short interval.
Example: No Memory detected (2,3). Power button LED blinks 2-times in Amber followed by a pause, and then blinks 3-times in White. The Power button LED will pause for few seconds before the next cycle repeats itself again.
| Blinking pattern | Problem description | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Amber | White | ||
| 1 | 1 | TPM Detection Failure | |
| 1 | 2 | Unrecoverable SPI flash failure | |
| 2 | 1 | CPU failure | |
| 2 | 2 | System board failure (including BIOS corruption or ROM error) | |
| 2 | 3 | No memory/RAM detected | |
| 2 | 4 | Memory/RAM failure | |
| 2 | 5 | Invalid Memory installed | |
| 2 | 6 | System board error, chipset error, clock failure, gate A20 failure, super I/O failure, keyboard controller failure | |
| 3 | 1 | CMOS battery failure | |
| 3 | 2 | PCIe or video card/chip failure | |
| 3 | 3 | BIOS recovery image not found | |
| 3 | 4 | BIOS recovery image found but invalid | |
| 3 | 5 | Power Rail Failure: EC ran into power sequencing failure. | |
| 3 | 6 | Flash corruption detected by SBIOS | |
| 3 | 7 | Intel ME (Management Engine) time-out error | |
| 4 | 2 | CPU power cable connection issue | |
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