Latitude D830 Won't Post

[NJLOAD]

Crazy worked fine one night and the next won't post, boot or anything. Troubleshooting section in manual claims the system is not recognizing the memory. Blinking lights on the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and solid light on the Num Lock. I reseated both sets of memory, and replaced with memory from a working laptop and still nothing. I removed the HD and hooked up to a Desktop PC and it is working and all files are visible.

Don't even get a flicker on the screen and when the keyboard was removed to re-seat that memory the fan isn't visually energized either.

Any Ideas?

[Yazoo]

Originally Posted by NJLOAD

Crazy worked fine one night and the next won't post, boot or anything. Troubleshooting section in manual claims the system is not recognizing the memory. Blinking lights on the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and solid light on the Num Lock. I reseated both sets of memory, and replaced with memory from a working laptop and still nothing. I removed the HD and hooked up to a Desktop PC and it is working and all files are visible.

Don't even get a flicker on the screen and when the keyboard was removed to re-seat that memory the fan isn't visually energized either.

Any Ideas?

To rule out just about everything but the board, remove the battery and unplug the system. Hold the power button for 30 seconds and reseat the memory modules (remove and reinstall). Try without the battery (adapter only). If the system will power up, the battery is faulty. If it won't, the mainboard is bad.

Try these steps in order:
------------------------
- Remove RAM from outside slot (DIMM B) and reseat

- Remove internal Bluetooth card

- Remove RAM from inside slot (DIMM A, under keyboard) and swap with DIMM B

- Remove wireless card

- Replace coin cell battery

[cl-scott]

It's been too long since I've done Dell repair work, so I can't remember it off the top of my head but if you go to the Dell website and look up the documentation for the D830, you should be able to find out what the error code is you're getting with the two blinking and one solid LED.

[NJLOAD]

cl-scott, error code is listed in my first post. Manual says it's memory related issue but every thing has been re-seated and even good memory installed from Dell Studio 17 that i have. Coin cell has over 3 volts. It's just hard to imagine how one night it was working and the next deader than a door nail. Kinda like a light bulb I guess.

I have the whole thing torn down if anyone has anything else to recommend.

[cl-scott]

Originally Posted by NJLOAD

cl-scott, error code is listed in my first post. Manual says it's memory related issue but every thing has been re-seated and even good memory installed from Dell Studio 17 that i have. Coin cell has over 3 volts. It's just hard to imagine how one night it was working and the next deader than a door nail. Kinda like a light bulb I guess.

I have the whole thing torn down if anyone has anything else to recommend.

In that case, I'd say you've got a bad motherboard. I'm assuming you've tested each memory bank individually with known good RAM. And it's a bit uncommon, but when I was the onsite hardware tech for a university, and about 90% of what I did was Dell repair, it would happen. Sometimes things just up and die for no apparent reason. Most of the time, yes, there are warning signs (and there probably were in your case but you didn't notice them for whatever reason), but sometimes you shut it down at night, go to turn it on the next morning, and it doesn't work.

[rsutoratosu]

you may have bad cpu too.. i had a d620 that won't post with the flashing lights, etc.

Swap motherboard 2 times and later after the 3rd board not posting, we put a different cpu in and it booted right up

[NJLOAD]

yup, did swap out good memory and same nothing. Googled a new board and it's cheaper just to buy a new PC. What a throw away society we have become.

thanks for all the good suggestions.