Dell Inspiron 530s won't turn on! Help please.

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Spock96, Apr 6, 2012.

  1. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

    Hey Guys,
    My mother's Dell Inspiron 530s won't turn on, boot, nothing.
    We came home and it was "turned off" the power button was yellow.
    I tried to turn it on buy the power button, but nothing. I pulled the power chord and after a few seconds it did turn off. I plugged it back in and the light went immediately back to yellow. Not black as it should have.
    I unplugged it and pulled it out and opened it up. Removed the CMOS battery, tested it....it's at 3v like it should be, let it sit for a minute and put it back in, turned it on and nothing. I think that it might be the PSU. What's my next step in troubleshooting it?
    Help please.
    Spock96
     
  2. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

  3. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Hi, Spock96...

    By all means, if you have access to the new power supply, then try the swap - it's a good first troubleshooting step...

    I'm curious, though: usually a power supply will give some sort of preliminary symptoms before rolling over. If the PSU replacement doesn't solve things, we need to keep going. Is it possible that this is some hibernate/sleep malfunction? What's the Windows version and SP#?

    You know the drill...;)
     
  4. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

    I don't have access to another PSU.
    Windows Vista Home Premium I think SP3.
    I have no clue about the sleep/hibernate thing. Though I doubt it, when I opened it, it smelled burnt around the CPU.
     
  5. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Good morning...

    My bad about the PSU advice, then - because of your link, I thought you had already grabbed a replacement...

    Well, that certainly changes things. Have you found any obvious burn marks, tracks, distorted capacitors, etc.? Is the heatsink and/or fan clogged with dust, and does the fan spin freely? Is the fan coming on when the machine is started?
     
  6. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

    No burn marks, tracks. Nothing like that. Capacitors seem fine seem ok. Hardly any dust around there.
    No the fan doesn't come on. No fans, HD doesn't spin up.( I pulled the HD and plugged it into mine via my HD adapter and it's perfectly fine...thankfully.) No lights on the case except that yellow power light.
     
  7. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Well, you're going to have to make a decision here - practically the only way to move forward is to start swapping components. Unfortunately, if you don't have spares on hand this can prove to be quite expensive, especially with older machines.

    Try unplugging all power cables except the main power connector to the motherboard - do you get any indications at all when you press the power button?
     
  8. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    I always associate the yellow light on a DELL as power supply. I think they usually blink but someone on the board that used almost exclusively Dells said any yellow light was always fixed by a new power supply.

    You might want to verify the size and shape of your power supply because Dell does use some odd ones. You could also take the cover off the power supply after removing it. If you smelled burning some sort of goo from a bad capacitor should be obvious.
     
  9. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

    She's looking into buying another one I think.
     
  10. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

    Update--
    The Motherboard is burned up. Just got a friend to look it over with me.
     
  11. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Hey Spock,

    I just came across this and wanted to correct my previous post about the yellow light. Solid does indicate motherboard rather than power supply.

     
  12. Spock96

    Spock96 Major Geek 'Spocky'

    Thanks, Sach2. That would explain it. :)
     

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