Mysterious Orange Flashing Light on Dell Desktop Computer
Happy Holidays!
I do all my design work on a Mac, but I test on a WinTel. Last week, on the 16th, my Dell just stopped working. No sound, no fan ... nothing. Nothing except a mysterious orange flashing light that emitted from the power button. I tried many things and couldn't resolve the problem. I was really bummed out, but I need another computer, I can't test anything without it. That PC has IE 5, 6, 7, and FireFox, Opera, Safari 3, and Netscape. Perfect for testing my web sites.
So I went to Discount PC and bought an HP. It was supposed to be here on Friday, but it's still not here.
Last night, my brother and his family came over to do the Christmas eve gift thing. Being a Mac person as well, I didn't tell him about the mysterious orange light. But it came up in the course of the evening. He went over to the Dell and held the power button down for a very, very long time. It's working great now!!! Since my brother has another music school he just opened up, he needs an additional PC, so he's going the buy the one I just bought too (when it gets here). That worked out well.
I hope this helps someone out there.
Update:Once I turned it off, it happened again and wound't start again. The power supply is messed up. That's getting replaced and all should be well.
December 25, 2007
Hey, did u get the light prob fixed with a new power supply?
I also have the same problem.
Cheers
Yes. I did get it fixed with a new power supply.
I had the same issue, but I just opened up the PC and pressed on all the power connectors between the power source and the motherboard and bam, problem fixed, something was slightly loose.
Hey, I just got a monitor for Christmas and when i thought i had everything set up everything turned on but when i turned it on it said no signal analog then the light turns orange and my power supply is fine do you think that my computer needs a DVI plug because my monitor has a spot for it but my computer doesn't do you think it is posible that my computer is to old for my computer?
Christina says: I really don't know. Sorry.
How long is a very, very long time? Did he hold it down for minutes? Longer?
About 1 minute.
I have a dell Optiplex SX280, ultra small form factor. It booted up, then made a noise and went dead. From then on it would power up but would not boot. The fans were running, the hard drive was spinning, but the monitor was completely blank. The power light in front was flashing orange and the motherboard light was orange (which may be normal). The A,B,C,D in back above the power cord were not light up at all. I replaced the RAM and didn't work. I replaced the BIOS battery and it didn't work. I tried a 2nd power supply and it didn't work (I bought 2 power supply units when I purchased computer). I tried a different monitor and didn't work. I inspected all the USB ports and everything seemed fine. Finally I noticed 3 of the capacitors on the mother board were bulging on top and 2 of them had leakage (see this website for example pictures (http://www.badcaps.net). I was convinced this was it. Luckily I found a local computer repair shop that replaced the capacitors same day for $60.00 and voila - it booted right up!! So my recommendation is inspect all the capacitors on the motherboard especially if you have this model Dell since apparently it is a known issue.
What do you think?
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