Amber blinking and beeping light, no boot-up

Hi there,

I have a Dell xps 9100 that's got issues.

At the moment, when I try and boot it up I get a flashing amber light with beeping. Two beeps every few seconds.

I have tried:
Removing and reseating RAM several times, removing video card and reseating, clearing cmos with jumper, unseating and reseating the cmos battery, unplugging dvd drive and checking the connections all to no avail.

I had this happen a couple of days ago, once. I powered off and powered back on and it just worked but today, not so much.

I noticed earlier today that my system was only showing 8gigs of ram when I have 12 installed. I'm on Windows 7 premium and the system can take up to 16. It came with 12 so i've never upgrated the RAM

Prior to all of this I've had "blue screen of death" issues but that seems to have resolved with some recent updates.

It's probably a long shot but anybody have any ideas that I can try? I'm hoping its not the motherboard but things are not looking good.

Thanks!

 

Two beeps generally does indicate a RAM issue.

If me, I would pull all but one stick of RAM and run like that for a bit and see what happens. If nothing (no problems), swap sticks and try again until you have tried each separately and [hopefully] identified the bad stick.

You can also test all your RAM at once using one of the following programs. Both require you to create and boot to a bootable floppy disk or CD to run the diagnostics. Allow the diagnostics to run for several passes or even overnight. You should have no reported errors.

Windows Memory Diagnostic - see the easy to follow instructions under Quick Start Information,
or
MemTest86+ (for more advanced users) - an excellent how-to guide is available here,
or
Windows 7 and Windows 8 users can use the built in Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool. Vista users can test with Vista's Memory Diagnostics. ​

HOWEVER, note that software based RAM diagnostic tools are good, but not conclusive. They are good at detecting obviously bad RAM, but they can report RAM is good but the RAM still refuses to work when installed, or may test good but refuse to work when paired with other sticks. So running with just a single RAM module/stick to see if it fails may still be the best test - short of replacing all the RAM.

Note for future reference, clearing the CMOS with the jumper and unseating and reseating the CMOS battery do the same thing - reset the BIOS. You only need do one or the other.

Do remember to unplug your computer from the wall before any interior maintenance and be sure to touch bare metal of the case interior BEFORE reaching in for your RAM to discharge any destructive static build-up in your body.

 

Thanks for the reply. Tried the RAM out in another computer, all fine. Tested PSU, all fine. Looks like it's time to take it in for check-up. Suspecting the motherboard tanked.

 

Hi,

did you goto the dell website to check out error beeps and such?

 

yeah, checked all that out. computer is in the shop... just hoping its something stupid and not the motherboard.

 

No shame in that. Please keep us posted.

 

Dead motherboard. Raid 0 config. Ordered a Dell refurb off ebay for $95 and swapped it out. Seems to be working very well now! Thanks for the help once again.

 

Well, sorry it came down to the motherboard but I am glad you got it sorted out. And thanks for coming back with the follow-up post.

 

Not to butt in, but I have a Dell XPS 8300 with the factory updated warranty mobo. It was installed in 2/13 to replace the original.

The updated board was condemned with mobo issues, but it turned out that the problem was actually a bootkit. Kasperky TDSSKiller rooted it out, and it's been fine ever since.

Not saying such is the case here, but if a boot sector scan had not been run on this machine I would have recommended doing so.

Here is some feedback:

http://reviews.dell.com/2341n/studio-xps-9100/dell-studio-xps-9100-reviews/reviews.htm

 

Bootkits are pretty rare these days as they typically travel by physical means (infected bootable floppy, or CD/DVD). I suppose an infected flash drive might do too. They are a nasty rootkit variant. Glad Kaspersky got it.

But since a bootkit locates itself on the drive and a new motherboard fixed this problem, I don't think malware was the problem - this time.

 

Yeah, it's working great now. Just thankful to have my data back. And I learned how to replace a MB!

 

This bootkit actually commandeered quite a few things, mainly the network adapter. A W7 format and reinstall was useless. It was one nasty bit of code. After the MBR was clean, it's been fine ever since.