Dell Desktop won't boot

MrFrisp

Hi guys, I have a Dell Inspiron 546 desktop that won't boot.

I power it on, the light comes on, the fan goes, but nothing else happens.

There is no power going to the keyboard, or the mouse.

There is also no single beep that usually happens as its going through the start up.

I have opened it up, cleaned it out, but can't see anything else wrong there.

It's about 7/8 years old.

Any ideas of what could be going on here??
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Atlantic Dawn

Anything getting displayed on the screen? If it was a hard drive failure the keyboard and screen should still work. Any chance water got in to it or it got a bad knock?

MrFrisp

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Anything getting displayed on the screen? If it was a hard drive failure the keyboard and screen should still work. Any chance water got in to it or it got a bad knock?

No, the monitors are on, but nothing happens. It's a wireless mouse, so when waking up the PC from sleep mode, just press a button on the mouse, or move it and it usually wakes it up.

Usually when booting, the lights come on on the keyboard, but this is not happening.

As I said, it's not getting the usual test beep it makes when booting.

It hasn't been knocked, and definitely no water damage.
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smuggler.ie

MrFrisp wrote: »

... but nothing happens.

nothing(blank) and "no input" are two different things - witch is it?
And get wired mouse and keyboard for troubleshooting purposes. If windows not loading, drivers for wireless stuff not there to work.

niallb

At that age it needs a new BIOS CMOS battery.

I'd also suspect the capacitors in the power supply, but somebody on YouTube has the same symptoms as you and posted a video on how they fixed it.

https://youtu.be/vIbyfxX8JsI

MrFrisp

smuggler.ie wrote: »

nothing(blank) and "no input" are two different things - witch is it?
And get wired mouse and keyboard for troubleshooting purposes. If windows not loading, drivers for wireless stuff not there to work.

Ok I mean nothing as in, the monitors are working fine, it's just when it tries to boot, no activity other than the screensaver on the monitors.
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I have tried wired keyboard and mouse, but no difference.
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MrFrisp

niallb wrote: »

At that age it needs a new BIOS CMOS battery.

I'd also suspect the capacitors in the power supply, but somebody on YouTube has the same symptoms as you and posted a video on how they fixed it.

https://youtu.be/vIbyfxX8JsI

The original power supply failed about 18 months ago, and I replaced it.

I'll definitely try the new battery. It'll be a cheap start to try.

Thank you.

MrFrisp

MrFrisp wrote: »

The original power supply failed about 18 months ago, and I replaced it.

I'll definitely try the new battery. It'll be a cheap start to try.

Thank you.

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Looking back through some emails it was actually 5/6 years ago I replaced the power supply.

When I had it apart today, there is power by the CMOS battery, as the small amber light is on.
All the fans spin up when turned on, and a little whirring noise from the hard drive, but still won't boot.

Tried the new battery as per the YouTube video, but hasn't worked either.

Is my next move the power supply, although the fan on it spins on startup??

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smuggler.ie

MrFrisp wrote: »

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Looking back through some emails it was actually 5/6 years ago I replaced the power supply.

When I had it apart today, there is power by the CMOS battery, as the small amber light is on.
All the fans spin up when turned on, and a little whirring noise from the hard drive, but still won't boot.

Tried the new battery as per the YouTube video, but hasn't worked either.

Is my next move the power supply, although the fan on it spins on startup??

.

At this point you looking to troubleshoot by process of elimination.
See what cheapest options you can go for, before committing for some investment.


Remove all peripherals and add-on cards/drives if any

Re-seat RAM, try one stick at the time
Borrow and test PSU/ test your PSU in another PC


After that its grasping straws - if its not PSU, then, most likely, is MoBo/CPU/RAM failure, see LED/Beep Codes

Solid Amber: The system board cannot start initialization. There may be an issue with the system board, memory, processor or the power supply.

Didn't Santa visited you this X'mas? consider new build - resurrecting ~8 year old tech might not be worth hassle.

MrFrisp

smuggler.ie wrote: »

At this point you looking to troubleshoot by process of elimination.
See what cheapest options you can go for, before committing for some investment.


Remove all peripherals and add-on cards/drives if any

Re-seat RAM, try one stick at the time
Borrow and test PSU/ test your PSU in another PC


After that its grasping straws - if its not PSU, then, most likely, is MoBo/CPU/RAM failure, see LED/Beep Codes

Didn't Santa visited you this X'mas? consider new build - resurrecting ~8 year old tech might not be worth hassle.

.
I removed the ram today, rebooted, and still nothing. Thought I'd get some error beeps, but nothing.

Thinking at this stage it just might be the motherboard.. It'll kill me to change it, as we have years of stuff on it.

I don't get a whole lot of time each day to work on it, so tomorrow I'll remove the ram again, and the video card.

After that,, I'll find somewhere that will take it, and do a free assessment for the problem. At least that way I'll know if it's worth keeping.

Absolutely no funds available for a rebuild, and wont have for a while. Hence why I'm trying to save it.
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smuggler.ie

https://www.adverts.ie/power-supply-units/power-supply-dell/19259179
https://www.adverts.ie/towers/dell-optiplex-390-case-psu-dvd/19530797
https://www.adverts.ie/towers/dell-vostro-tower-with-psu/19507015

might get you out.

MrFrisp

smuggler.ie wrote: »

https://www.adverts.ie/power-supply-units/power-supply-dell/19259179
https://www.adverts.ie/towers/dell-optiplex-390-case-psu-dvd/19530797
https://www.adverts.ie/towers/dell-vostro-tower-with-psu/19507015

might get you out.

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Thank you for that.

I hope it doesn't come to that though.. I'll still hope I can rescue this.

Very similar situation in the link below, but I'm not getting the Orange light. I'm getting the White light, but no activity from the Drive light. That usually blinks fairly fast when the drive is in use.

Guy in the link though never got his working, despite replacing nearly everything.

Very strange.

https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron-Desktops/Inspiron-546-will-not-POST/td-p/7187061
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AllForIt

By far the most likely scenario is that the mobo is dead. When the mobo goes it is always the hope that it is the power supply that is at fault but it usually isn't.

If it doesn't come back to life with a new button battery then I wouldn't waste any more time on it and order a replacement mobo - if you don't want to buy a whole new system. A replacement copy of a mobo shouldn't be that expensive for a PC of that age. I just replaced mine not to long ago, think I paid £40 for it.

Edit: if you're really desperately short of funds, I have brought devices back to life by putting them in the cooker over. You'd have to google this on how to do it right. This re-solders the joints - or something else you just can't know. It usually never lasts though even if it works. My advice is make some short term cutbacks and order a new mobo off ebay. Save yourself the stress of trying to fix it.

MrFrisp

AllForIt wrote: »

By far the most likely scenario is that the mobo is dead. When the mobo goes it is always the hope that it is the power supply that is at fault but it usually isn't.

If it doesn't come back to life with a new button battery then I wouldn't waste any more time on it and order a replacement mobo - if you don't want to buy a whole new system. A replacement copy of a mobo shouldn't be that expensive for a PC of that age. I just replaced mine not to long ago, think I paid £40 for it.

.
Sounds interesting indeed.

As per some reading I've being doing, I'm going to let the battery out for the night, and try again tomorrow.

You might read from the link I put up though, another guy tried everything, mobo, psu, proc, and still never got it to work.

Any chance you remember where you got the parts you needed?

Replacement mobo on Ebay second hand are still close to $100.
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AllForIt

MrFrisp wrote: »

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Sounds interesting indeed.

As per some reading I've being doing, I'm going to let the battery out for the night, and try again tomorrow.

You might read from the link I put up though, another guy tried everything, mobo, psu, proc, and still never got it to work.

Any chance you remember where you got the parts you needed?

Replacement mobo on Ebay second hand are still close to $100.
.

No idea, just a random ebay seller selling component parts. I don't think you can get refurb parts any cheaper than on ebay in my experience.

One tip I can give you for buying on ebay (if your are living in Ireland). Set up a parcel motel account which gives you a UK Address. Change your primary address on you ebay account to the UK one that Parcel Motel gives you. Then use ebay.CO.UK, not ebay.ie. This will reveal listings from ppl who are only willing to ship their items to the UK, which is usually a lot. In general you will get a lot more listing results than otherwise.

Before doing all that you can just open ebay.co.uk, don't log in, and see what's available on the ebay UK site, to see if the mobo you want is available cheaper than the one's you have already seen. I bet you will. edit: you could also look into getting a different mobo that would fit your device, it doesn't have to be the exact same model, if your really stuck.

MrFrisp

AllForIt wrote: »

No idea, just a random ebay seller selling component parts. I don't think you can get refurb parts any cheaper than on ebay in my experience.

One tip I can give you for buying on ebay (if your are living in Ireland). Set up a parcel motel account which gives you a UK Address. Change your primary address on you ebay account to the UK one that Parcel Motel gives you. Then use ebay.CO.UK, not ebay.ie. This will reveal listings from ppl who are only willing to ship their items to the UK, which is usually a lot. In general you will get a lot more listing results than otherwise.

Before doing all that you can just open ebay.co.uk, don't log in, and see what's available on the ebay UK site.

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Well ahead of you there,,, I have an AddressPal account, so sorted for the UK delivery.

Thank you for the advice, heading to Ebay now.
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smuggler.ie

MrFrisp wrote: »

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Well ahead of you there,,, I have an AddressPal account, so sorted for the UK delivery.

Thank you for the advice, heading to Ebay now.
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Search criteria Socket AM2 (Socket AM2+ at most) judging by CPU
On eBay you can get some starting from ~£15 , combo with CPU
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Acer-MCP61SM-AM-Rev-1-0-Motherboard-Socket-AM2/323838310338?hash=item4b664477c2:g:H6sAAOSw57BdChgC

MrFrisp

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Search criteria Socket AM2 (Socket AM2+ at most) judging by CPU
On eBay you can get some starting from ~£15 , combo with CPU
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Acer-MCP61SM-AM-Rev-1-0-Motherboard-Socket-AM2/323838310338?hash=item4b664477c2:g:H6sAAOSw57BdChgC

.
Cool.. And suitable for the Inspiron 546, yes??

I dont have much knowledge of these things.
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smuggler.ie

MrFrisp wrote: »

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Cool.. And suitable for the Inspiron 546, yes??

I dont have much knowledge of these things.
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Yes.
Don,t know what CPU you have and what board ,but highest it can be AM2+ and it would be backwards compatible with AM2

I have Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3(pay attention to "note") + Phenom X3 triple-core + heat-sink + 8GB RAM(not kit).
Was serving as media server for a while.
Laying idle since upgrade few year ago.

Be aware, that Windows(guess win 7) activation will go south if replace MoBo as it is tied to hardware.



PM if interested

SteelyDanJalapeno

MrFrisp wrote: »

.

Thinking at this stage it just might be the motherboard.. It'll kill me to change it, as we have years of stuff on it.

.

Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but as long as hard drive is operating ok everything you had on it from the years will be easy to get back.

Let me know if you're comfortable researching that yourself, or I can help

Inquitus

Personally I would take this chance to buy a new PC, you can then either fit your existing HDD as a non boot disk and recover whatever you want, or else get a cheap 3.5" USB Enclosure and backup whatever you need to another PC/Laptop you may have. I don't think this one is worth fixing.

MrFrisp

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Yes.
Don,t know what CPU you have and what board ,but highest it can be AM2+ and it would be backwards compatible with AM2

I have Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3(pay attention to "note") + Phenom X3 triple-core + heat-sink + 8GB RAM(not kit).
Was serving as media server for a while.
Laying idle since upgrade few year ago.

Be aware, that Windows(guess win 7) activation will go south if replace MoBo as it is tied to hardware.



PM if interested

.
Its windows 10. I had read that I'd lose the activation if I changed the mobo alright.
But, as already suggested, I'd keep it as a backup drive, so not sure if I'd still lose it.

I'll PM you in a bit.

Thank you.
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MrFrisp

SteelyDanJalapeno wrote: »

Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but as long as hard drive is operating ok everything you had on it from the years will be easy to get back.

Let me know if you're comfortable researching that yourself, or I can help

.
I'd be more than willing to try it myself, so be delighted for anything you can pass on to get me started.

Thank you.
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MrFrisp

Inquitus wrote: »

Personally I would take this chance to buy a new PC, you can then either fit your existing HDD as a non boot disk and recover whatever you want, or else get a cheap 3.5" USB Enclosure and backup whatever you need to another PC/Laptop you may have. I don't think this one is worth fixing.

.
Yeah, I think I'm getting to the point where I am not sure about pumping money into it.

On the other side of it, I'm also in the situation where I cannot afford to get another one for now.

So I have a bit of thinking to do.

Thank you for your input. Very much appreciated.
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Inquitus

You also need to be careful trying to replace parts, especially the mobo, Dell often use non standard motherboard sizes and its not a simple case of swapping one out and a different new one in.

MrFrisp

Well, I left out the CMOS battery all night, and still the same this morning.

I have yet to remove the video card to try and boot it, but I'll get to that today.

At this stage now, I'll remove what I can, try to boot it, and see what happens.

Yesterday I removed the Ram, booted, and still got no error beeps, so I'm thinking it's the mobo at this stage.

I'll try everything I can before I give it the last rites.
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MrFrisp

Inquitus wrote: »

You also need to be careful trying to replace parts, especially the mobo, Dell often use non standard motherboard sizes and its not a simple case of swapping one out and a different new one in.

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I read that alright. I need to really think about what I get for it.

Bit of research needed.
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SteelyDanJalapeno

Can you remove the hard drive and check the interface? It's more than likely SATA, if so, something like the following cable will allow you to copy the entire drive to any other laptop or PC

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Benfei-SATA-Adapter-Supports-UASP/dp/B07F7WDZGT/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?keywords=sata+usb+adapter&qid=1578049927&sprefix=sata+usb&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExVVpGWU1LT1ZHM0I1JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMDM3MzUzMjNXVDEyQ1o2SlFTRCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNTg4OTE3M1VLQlVDRkNLUlNGWCZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX3NlYXJjaF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

MrFrisp

SteelyDanJalapeno wrote: »

Can you remove the hard drive and check the interface? It's more than likely SATA, if so, something like the following cable will allow you to copy the entire drive to any other laptop or PC

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Benfei-SATA-Adapter-Supports-UASP/dp/B07F7WDZGT/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?keywords=sata+usb+adapter&qid=1578049927&sprefix=sata+usb&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExVVpGWU1LT1ZHM0I1JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMDM3MzUzMjNXVDEyQ1o2SlFTRCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNTg4OTE3M1VLQlVDRkNLUlNGWCZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX3NlYXJjaF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

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When I try to boot it, I do hear a noise from the hard drive, so I presume it's working fine.

I did disconnect it yesterday, booted, and still nothing. No error beeps, etc.

That cable looks very handy, thank you.
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Banzai600

just spotted this thread. And im no techy !

i had same issue with Dell desktop, you hit the power button, it fires up, then turns off as quick. You can hear the drive spinning for the split second and the light is on a t the back afaik. i just kept at it and it it, then it eventually power up.

hoover it , get all the dust out, even all the inside - be sure to plug out obviously. take out the rame, place back in, check any cables they are ok, and hoover all around.

i had to replace mine, but when i got it booted up, i took info what i needed off it. when i did fire it up it was fine, it was getting the thing to switch on that was the problem, just happened out of nowhere and it was a high enough grade machine i used in work, plenty of memory / ram and storage space free, never had a hard life as such.

i cant remember what i did, i was googling stuff for 2 days. but kept pressing the button,, idfferent sequences, leavcing it plugged out , draining residual power etc and trying again.

disconnect power and hold power button in for 20 secs, try holding button in for 3 secs, releasing then powering up

if you do get it running get what you need off it, and get it fixed somehow. my theory it was overheating....

some links
https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/dell-desktop-won-t-start-with-power-button-352890/

MrFrisp

Banzai600 wrote: »

just spotted this thread. And im no techy !

i had same issue with Dell desktop, you hit the power button, it fires up, then turns off as quick. You can hear the drive spinning for the split second and the light is on a t the back afaik. i just kept at it and it it, then it eventually power up.

hoover it , get all the dust out, even all the inside - be sure to plug out obviously. take out the rame, place back in, check any cables they are ok, and hoover all around.

i had to replace mine, but when i got it booted up, i took info what i needed off it. when i did fire it up it was fine, it was getting the thing to switch on that was the problem, just happened out of nowhere and it was a high enough grade machine i used in work, plenty of memory / ram and storage space free, never had a hard life as such.

i cant remember what i did, i was googling stuff for 2 days. but kept pressing the button,, idfferent sequences, leavcing it plugged out , draining residual power etc and trying again.

disconnect power and hold power button in for 20 secs, try holding button in for 3 secs, releasing then powering up

if you do get it running get what you need off it, and get it fixed somehow. my theory it was overheating....

some links
https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/dell-desktop-won-t-start-with-power-button-352890/

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Thanks for that..

When I start it up, it stays on, it don't switch off, unless I turn it off.

I done a good bit of cleaning to it, but might have to do more.

I'll just keep at it until I get fed up with it, but that could be a while yet, lol.
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