Hi Everyone,
Recently I pressed the power button on my Dell CPx and the lights came on, flashed a time or two and then it shut off. Now, this is with it plugged in. I tried it with a full battery and it did the same thing with the exception that it didn't shut off, it locked up without running and I had to pull the battery to turn it off. I have seen quite a few posts, blogs, and even a bunch of machines that people are selling on ebay that do the same thing. SO, this is obviously a common issue. HOWEVER, I am stumped as to how to fix it. I have tried a working motherboard from my other CPx, another hard drive, ram card, power source, battery, and nothing has worked.

The Dell people kept telling me it's the motherboard but yet everytime I put a good one in it still didn't work...they still told me to buy a damn motherboard! AAAGGGHHH...I have tried applying pressure to the motherboard as some have stated and still nothing. HEEEELLLLPPPP PLLLEAAASSEEE!!

Thanks,
Edgar912

You know...as I have been looking around, there are a lot of these same symptoms in other dells also. I have seen a whole lot of posts and frustrated people talking about this and have yet to find an answer or anything that works.

HELP! I can't believe that 41 people have read this and no one has any input...help me please!!!!

From what you have said I can only assume that the power switch is broken. You say you have pretty much tried everything.

I would try the power board from the working CPx. Not sure if it is the same as the C600 I have, but it should be quite easy to access and swap for the working one.

Hope this helps.

Matt

Thank you for responding Matt. I will try that.
Ed

Could be as simple as a bad cable or lead going between your hardware. Check just to make sure all the cables aren't broken. Have you installed any new hardware recently or opened up your PC for any reason before the symptoms appeared?

Could be as simple as a bad cable or lead going between your hardware. Check just to make sure all the cables aren't broken. Have you installed any new hardware recently or opened up your PC for any reason before the symptoms appeared?

From what I've seen on google images, the cable from the switches board to the mobo is a ribbon cable, so it could be easily damaged.

Have you added any new RAM, or opened up your case for any reason before you experienced these start-up problems? A cable miss placed near anything hot (such as transistors/triacs on your motherboard) could cause them to to become damaged.
Also what is the last thing you did with your computer, such as installing some new software etc. before you experienced your problems?

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