Dell blinking amber light- No boot

[Don Rogerson]

Had the Amber light problem with a refusal to boot up .. Called a knowledgeable friend and was asked to unplug all of my USB components just leaving the keyboard plugged in.
My Dell booted up in it's usual manner .. I shut down and plugged in the printer and it booted up OK .. preformed this procedure until I tried starting with my USB Hub, this is when I got the Amber light and a refusal to boot .. if you are having this problem, this procedure maybe helpful, it's an easy, fast, and cheap trick if it works .. gl Don R

[brianneb8652]

I have a dell E510 dimension that started with the blinking amber light and no start I found a sound Tap on the left side of the case will clear amber light and computer will start. must be something in the start button.

[53herbie]

I have a Dell E510. I had the amber blinking light. My computer would take a long time to turn on then not at all. Found some info on the internet and opened up my power supply to find 3 bulging/leaking capacitors. Went to DigiKey Corp. | Electronic Components Distributor | United States Home Page and paid about $7 with shipping for the capacitors and soldered them in and as good as new.

[53herbie]

I have a Dell E510. I had the amber blinking light. My computer would take a long time to turn on then not at all. Found some info on the internet and opened up my power supply to find 3 bulging/leaking capacitors. Went to www.digi-key.com and paid about $7 with shipping for the capacitors and soldered them in and as good as new.

[53herbie]

I have a Dell E510. I had the amber blinking light. My computer would take a long time to turn on then not at all. Found some info on the internet and opened up my power supply to find 3 bulging/leaking capacitors. Went to www.digi-key.com and paid about $7 with shipping for the capacitors and soldered them in and as good as new. Let me know. carlkwaz@yahoo.com

[53herbie]

I have a Dell E510. I had the amber blinking light. My computer would take a long time to turn on then not at all. Found some info on the internet and opened up my power supply to find 3 bulging/leaking capacitors. Went to www.digi-key.com and paid about $7 with shipping for the capacitors and soldered them in and as good as new. Let me know. carlkwaz@yahoo.com

[jeev2008]

Hi guyz I have dell poweredge 1655MC bought from ebay. It has an amber light flashing in the back where it says "i" symbol. In the back all other lights are green. No display comes to the monitor apart from 2 seconds BIOS message at the start. All the 6 blades at the front lights are blinking amber like mad...... Please someone help me or tell me what is the problem with this as I spent lot of money on this.


Thanks

[Don Rogerson]

Have you tried booting with only the keyboard connected? sometimes printers, mice, USB extras can cause problems ..if it boots ok, process of elimination is your next step
Don R

[stroyal]

Hi guyz I have dell poweredge 1655MC bought from ebay. It has an amber light flashing in the back where it says "i" symbol. In the back all other lights are green. No display comes to the monitor apart from 2 seconds BIOS message at the start. All the 6 blades at the front lights are blinking amber like mad...... Please someone help me or tell me what is the problem with this as I spent lot of money on this.


Thanks

Why a Server?

Here is the page for lights.
Documentation
Here is the list of manuals.
Documentation


Edit: You should start your own post. You will get better results.

[ericlin81]

Hi guys,

I have a Dell E520 that has the same problem with blinking amber lights. After having tried all solutions that is available on net, the problem still persisted. The solution that I have tried may work and WILL void warranty. So please take caution!!!

1) Remove cmos battery.
2) Remove the 4Pin connector.
3) Power on system. (You will find that power will be delivered to all components, ie: CPU fan, Hdd)
4) With the system on, plug back in the 4pin connector. (WARNING!!! One of a resistor onboard will blow and cause sparks)
5) Turn off system when you see sparks or burn smell.
6) Wait for 5mins and turn back system.
7) Your PC should work now.

Try it at your own risk and use it at a last attempt.

[jsp254]

^ LOL... what a jerk

[osprey4]

^ LOL... what a jerk

^ LOL... what great timing

[ds2007]

Just wanted to take time to post that my Dell had the exact issues as others, blinking yellow lights on front and would not boot. After pulling the bios battery, the machine still didn't start. I read in the forum to pull all the usb devices and that did it. The machine entered boot-up mode and works fine. I had to reconfig the setup because I lost the bios settings when I pulled the battery.
Evidently, I have a bad wireless keyboard device or some other usb device that was plugged in. I only have three so finding the culprit shouldn't be hard.

[harpalong93]

unplug from power source, remove case, remove power supply cable from motherboard jump the green wire and the black wire with a gem clip plug it back into motherboard plug back into power source if fans come on press power button system should boot as usual

[camachmsu]

just had the "flashing orange light" problem on a dell gx520 desktop. after changing the power supply and motherboard/processor/memory to no avail,,,,, i found the problem to be the little baby motherboard in the front of the computer. Its the board that has the front USBs, power button, mic, and headphone.

swapped it out with a known good part from an known good 520 and it fired right up. even checked the suspect part out in the known good computer..... sure enough it flashed orange.

should be a cheap fix

[Dubzspinin]

computer wont boot up. at first all lights abcd were green and ethernet plug was flashing and speaker inside was ticking and computer wouldnt turn on or off had to unplug it. I took the whole computer apart and put it back together and now the thing wont turn on but all the fans are running and the power light flashing amber HD light green and abcd lights off but ethernet plug flashing red and yellow. please help.

[schweigmon]

My story of a Dimension E520 with the Blinking Amber Light of Death (4-5 years old)
My computer died earlier this month after the Great San Diego Power Outage here in southern California. During the outage I made sure I turned off all of the power strips in the house, but after the power came back on my Dimension E520 would only give the blinking amber light. I am assuming the power fluctuations when the power went down must have killed it.
Resetting the CMOS, changing the battery etc… were all unsuccessful. Resetting the CMOS did increase the rate of the amber flashing power button. The voltages out of the power supply all checked out OK with no load. I couldn’t figure out how to get the probes onto the 24 pin motherboard connector with it connected to the motherboard. There were a few puffy capacitors on the motherboard so I though it was toast.
Picked up the only power supply available at the local Best Buy. Turns out it doesn’t fit the case properly but it did allow the computer to boot – so it was the power supply that was preventing it from booting.
I ordered one of the Cooler Master power supplies recommended on a Dell forum.
Meanwhile I disassembled the out-of-commission power supply and found some puffy capacitors (and one that appeared leaky with a browned top) on the board. (C414; C415; and C302 – all 2200uF, 16V, ~10mm x 28mm caps) Only two were puffy looking but I de-soldered all three of them, and ordered replacements from Mouser Electronics. I also ordered the replacements for the puffy capacitors on the motherboard in case I needed them. (3 x 3300uF, 6.3V, 10mm dia. caps).
The capacitors and the new power supply came in on the same day. I soldered the caps into the old power supply board, reassembled it, tested the no-load voltages to make sure they were in spec, installed it and it worked!
I am back up and running for several days now. I have returned the Best Buy supply that didn’t fit the case, and will be returning the unopened replacement power supply that I ordered online.
If you can spend a little time and have access to soldering/desoldering equipment it’s not very hard. I had never done a board level repair before but didn’t run into any major problems. I have a laptop in the house as well so I wasn't completely without a computer and had time to attempt the repair.

schweigmon

[katpat23]

Thanks to all you guys, we fixed our Dell Dimension 5150 with an amber-flashing light by checking the USB ports. We found one with some broken prongs, straightened them out, and then everything is working again.

Remember: amber flashing means something like plug-in devices are malfunctioning.

Brilliant stuff!

[geanswerman]

I found on one of the posts the removal of the battery from the motherboard. Leaving the battery out of motherboard the computer started when pressing the power button and no amber flashing power light. I will do additional tests tonight.

[techmi26]

My Dimension C521 had a dead power supply. It wouldn't do anything when pressing the power button.

The replacement ordered on eBay came and produced the blinking amber / orange light. Turns out the replacement PSU came set to 230V SO MAKE SURE your power supply is set to 110 / 115V.