E510 Blinking Amber - only works w/o CMOS battery and front panel hook

[danno74]

Greetings,


I know this to be a huge problem, but I cannot for the life of me find anyone with my circumstances.

I unplug everything except power from the board and reset the CMOS, when I plug the power in, it boots to msg screen and allows normal access to BIOS. But if I unplug it and try to plug it back in after the mobo light is out, it won't boot. If I take the CMOS battery out, it works. If I leave the CMOS battery out and connect everything EXCEPT the front panel cable, it gives me the following errors but allows me to continue boot and access Windows normally:

Performing automatic IDE Config

Drive 1 disk drive

Floppy diskette seek failure

time of day not set - run setup

invalid config information run setup

Alert! Previous Fan Failure

F1 Continue, F2 for setup

Is there something wrong with the front panel interface? I have seen other posts referring to that be a lesser know problem. I ordered a mobo because after eliminating the power supply as a problem that was my next step. New mobo does the same thing. I just don't understand what the CMOS and front panel have to do with each other, does the front panel report to the CMOS hardware info?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

- Dan

 

[goombawaho]

That's a confusing post, but here goes:

Pull the motherboard out of the case and puti on a piece of wood, cardboard or tile floor.

The only things attached should be CMOS battery, memory, CPU with cooler, video card (if you don't have an integrated card) and power supply.

Use the jumpers on the motherboard and SHORT them to simulate when you push the power button. WHAT HAPPENS???

If it boots up to BIOS reliably after several power up/power down cycles then it could be a power button problem. If nothing good happens, it's probably the MOBO.

Are there any amber lights on the back of the Dell??? Some of them have diagnostic lights like A B C D See if any of them are not green - might be amber to indicate an error.

Also, any unusual beep codes when starting computer???

Try pulling all memory out and start - should give you some interesting beep codes. If not, mobo is not looking heatlthy.

 

[G0AOZ]

And if only to eliminate it from the equation, temporarily bung in a known good PSU of the same or higher Wattage...

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[goombawaho]

Yes - power supply is always a good test. You could try that FIRST and just use the new power supply throughout my suggestions.

If you don't have one/can't borrow one, do as I suggested with your existing power supply. My suggestions ARE in order above although I didn't number them. There is a logic in their order. You could check the diagnostic lights before pulling it out of the case.

If you don't feel comfortable you could do some of the other tests still in the case. It just eliminates any possibility that something is shorting something. And I say unplug everything - I mean everything: front panel USB and Audio connectors, etc. I saw a bad front panel USB connector prevent a PC from booting. Unplug it - boom, normal boot.