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solwebdude
7 Posts
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10029
March 3rd, 2007 16:00
Power Supply Issue?
My Dimension 5150 is just over a year old (thus out of warranty) and it suddenly started rebooting every 5 minutes or so.
I opened the case and reseated the power supply connections but now it won’t come up at all.
Checking other posts on the forum I’m leaning towards the power supply. When I plug in the power cord now, the system attempts to power up, the motherboard LED lights solid, and the front panel hard drive indicator blinks along with 1, 3 & 4 (which doesn’t match any diagnostic code -http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim5150/en/sm/tshoot1.htm#wp1114195). It then dies for 3-4 seconds and repeats this until I unplug it.
Is there any way to narrow down if this is Power Supply or Motherboard?
In other posts it looks like the Power Supply wasn’t the issue but I hate to just buy a new Motherboard if it’s a (less expensive) power issue. I hate to throw parts (money) at the problem till it goes away. These days it may be cheaper to just buy a new computer.
- Early in POST execution (and only there) are a few steps inventorying and initializing the chipset that contain the instruction 'if fail, goto start and try again'. Power is not one of the conditions that invoke auto-retry--power fail is a dead end condition. Certain display card issues can cause this, though depending which one you have it can cost as much as a motherboard (easier to change though).Remove accessory cards and see if that changes the result--if yes, put them back one at a time until the symptom returns, the last one reinstalled is bad. If no difference and the power light remains green during restarts, motherboard is almost certainly bad.
- Onboard video is a product of the GMCH, primary chipset component. Resolution is controlled by the Intel display driver which might be marginal, causing resolution settings to change. But also, if the hardware is marginal, that might explain both the startup loop and the resolution changing. The driver is not an issue during startup, it doesn't load until between the 1st and 2nd Windows screens. And initializing video is one of the things that get 'retried' if they return an error.Plug-in video still uses the GMCH, but in a different capacity (the G stands for graphics). So adding a display card could very well bypass the failing step. Or not. :smileysad:
solwebdude
7 Posts
274
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Posted March 4th, 2007 18:00
After a little more playing around it does seem to be connected to the video, which is part of the motherboard. For some reason it randomly "forgets" the resolution upon reboot which it has done from day one. A minor inconvenience so I never tried to fix it.After I finally got it to come up last night, I left the resolution at the low setting and the system has been up and working fine. Today I set it back to the higher resolution to see if it would fail. But it's been OK so far. If it fails again I plan to try and disable the onboard video and use a video card that I happen to have as a workaround.Thanks for the all the information. Now I just have to hope I don't end up having to replace the motherboard...shesagordie
12 Elder
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46017 Posts
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Posted March 4th, 2007 19:00
:)Bev.===================================================
Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.
shesagordie
12 Elder
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46017 Posts
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Posted March 3rd, 2007 20:00
Is the power button LED, green, blinking green, solid amber, blinking amber?
The best way to check is either use a power supply tester, as shown here, or replace the exsisting power supply with a know working standard ATX power supply, with a 24-pin or 20 + 4-pin main motherboard power connector and if there's no change, then suspect the motherboard.
Bev.
===================================================
Please don't send me questions about your system by DCF Messenger.
Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.