[palmer41420]

I have a Dell Optiplex GX260. The customer said the computer was working fine before vacation and when he came home the computer would not turn on.

As soon as the power cord is connected the power button LED turns Yellow. I know most Dells have an amber light but this one is more of a yellow color. The LED on the mobo comes on when the power cord is connected also and is amber or orange. The four indicator lights on the back of the mobo that usually give a code as to what is wrong never come on. There are no beebs. When you press the power button nothing happens. If you unplug the power cord the power button LED and the mobo LED stay lit for about 5-10 seconds before going off.

I have already taking a known working power supply from another dell and tried it with the computer but the same thing occured.

I have also re-seated the CPU and Memory as well as tried one memory module at a time.

I have disconnected every IDE cable and power connection and reconnected.

There are no cards because everything is onboard with the mobo so I could not disconnect the video card.


Any ideas? I am assuming there is a bad CPU or motherboard but don't really have a way to test that.

Thank you for your help.

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Open the case. Look to see if any of the little cylindrical things on the main board and the CPU voltage converter board, on some Dells it's a little board that plugs into the main board next to the CPU, if any of the little cylinders have bulgy tops or are leaking. If they are they need to be replaced, or the board involved needs to be replaced. They are capacitors and on some boards they can go bad causing all kinds of problems.

[Tyger]

Open the case. Look to see if any of the little cylindrical things on the main board and the CPU voltage converter board, on some Dells it's a little board that plugs into the main board next to the CPU, if any of the little cylinders have bulgy tops or are leaking. If they are they need to be replaced, or the board involved needs to be replaced. They are capacitors and on some boards they can go bad causing all kinds of problems.

[palmer41420]

I checked the cylinders and they all look fine. Any other ideas? What is the small board next to the CPU that looks like it has a cooling unit on it? Its not something that i can remove i dont think.

Thanks for your assistance.

[tnthnic]

DEAR PALMER

I had the same problem and was ready to just throw the computer away. I even talked to the dell tech support. The guy tried to help but came up short. So what i did since i had nothing to lose and everything to gain was, remove every cord and screw near the power button area. Cleaned all the dust out that i saw and took the battery out. I Left it like that for an hour. Once i put all the wires back where they came from and put the battery back in and i did not see any dust on any connectors or circuits. I plugged the power cord in and i think i remember the lights in the back flashed so there was hope. When i pushed the power button in the front to my surprise the pc worked like new all over again. Give it a shot you should be successful as i was.

[The Admiral]

Yeah sounds like we have two problems: the awkwardly lit power light, and the computer not powering on. The fact that the power button responds to the power cord without being pressed sounds like the power button is stuck, or there's a crossed wire somewhere. Follow the power button cable from the button to the motherboard, make sure both ends are seated properly. And since the power light isn't even a normal color (trust me, it's only amber and green), something's up with the button.

[Jari Markus Muttilainen]

I had the same yellow light situation after cleaning up my companys Optiplex 790 PC. I tried disconnecting all the cables and checked everything many times but still nothing. Then I googled and found this, used airgun to blow powerbutton area very carefully and tried to power on my PC. It was success!!!. Thank you peeps.