[zxy]

Folks, friend of mine has a Dell laptop. Someone told him it was not repairable.
I have some electronics engineering degrees, and around these parts, I'm known as the court of last resort.
I have fixed the "unfixable" a great many times, so I got the nod.

Pulled the hard drive and made an image of it using an external hookup. Cleaning off a couple of viruses along the way.
The power brick was missing, and the battery was dead. Was told the brick " may have gotten thrown away". Great.
Found one online for about 10 bucks.
While waiting, I pulled the mem sticks and cleaned and reseated them. Checked all the obvious cable connections inside.
When the power supply showed up, I powered it up without the battery or hard drive.
Posted great. Installed the hard drive. Booted partially, then failed with a "failed install " error.
Used the Dell image on drive d to restore the machine to factory specs.

Booted fine. Set everything up, logged onto my local network, ran windows update.
Up to now, the machine had booted up several times flawlessly.
Started it updating windows. It was doing fine until I did something stupid.

While it was updating, I started doing other things.
Without thinking, I reached over and closed the lid.
My laptop is setup to keep running when I do that.

I suspect this one is set up to turn off, hibernate, or standby. I looked over and all the lights on the front were lit. The screen was black. I tried to wake it, no luck.
Held down the power button until it shut off.

Waited a few seconds, tried to reboot it.
Completely dead. No lights, no sound nothing. Checked the power supply, OK. Removed the hard drive, nothing.
Finally held down the FN button and hit the power.

The middle diagnostic light, 4 in a lock? (Its not in front of me, but I think so.) Lights solid instantly. The left one, 9-in-a-lock starts flashing fast.
And thats it.

Went to the Dell site, downloaded the op manual. All it says is to see the service manual for diagnostic lights explanation. Great.

Lo and Behold, I found the service manual on the Dell site. Way to Go Dell! Yeah sure.

The service manual is nothing but a disassembly manual. Helpful if you want to take it apart, but has nothing about operating it, trouble codes or anything else.

And I can find nothing in the Dell site, or anywhere else on the web that will tell me what the lights mean. If I had a clue as to what the flashing 9 means, it would give me an idea as to where to start.
I saw where a similar question was asked here last year, so I though maybe some one here might know.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to tell what I had already done to eliminate some suggestions that I had already done.

Thanks.

J.

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I thought I had something here when I scrolled down past the stuff on the left panel and found a list of error codes - then I read Error Code 9. Seems like a dead end.

The BIOS chip should have a label - might give a clue.

Edited by Digerati, 19 May 2009 - 02:44 PM.

[Digerati]

I thought I had something here when I scrolled down past the stuff on the left panel and found a list of error codes - then I read Error Code 9. Seems like a dead end.

The BIOS chip should have a label - might give a clue.

Edited by Digerati, 19 May 2009 - 02:44 PM.

[peter99]

The middle diagnostic light, 4 in a lock? (Its not in front of me, but I think so.) Lights solid instantly. The left one, 9-in-a-lock starts flashing fast.
And thats it.

from a dell manual 1525 inspiron the 4 might be num lock or caps lock the 9 is for the keypad

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Edited by peter99, 20 May 2009 - 05:31 AM.

[zxy]

Actually looking closer at it, the middle button is caps lock, and the "9" button is num lock.
My problem is, these are used for error codes when you hold down the fn key while powering up.
In my case, the caps lock light comes on, and the num lock light flashes rapidly.
But no one seem willing or able to tell me what that error code is. I assume Dell knows, but I have been unable to get the information from them so far.
I don't need someone to fix the thing, just tell me what the error code is so I can try to find out what it wrong.

Thanks

J.

[Digerati]

Wish I could help. I found one reference indicating battery issues - but you are running on the power supply. Are you sure it puts out the right voltage and enough current?

[peter99]

Portable LED Diagnostic Code Information

Failure of a Dell portable computer built in the year 2006 or later to complete the POST (Power-on Self Test) process will result in an LED code sequence that utilizes the Num Lock, Cap Lock, and Scroll Lock. The LED codes represent specific points during the POST process of the system.

The Table 1 below, details what each Code represents during the POST process

http://support.dell....o...&doclang=en

let me if the link does not work

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Edited by peter99, 22 May 2009 - 05:50 AM.

[Digerati]

Nice find peter - I knew I saw something like that before - it sure should have been easier to find.

Bookmarked now.

[jb8522]

Hi. I'm new here and am posting to find out if this problem was resolved, as i currently have what appears to be the same issue with my xps m1530. The above dell support link suggests activating the dock, but is this possible given the machine won't boot? Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

[GreenTree]

JB8522---

I am having the same problem. Mine happened shortly after I connected a third party battery (i.e., not official Dell). I replaced my CMOS battery with no change.

Let me know if you find anything...
I'll let you know if I find anything...

[GmanCasper]

Hello all. I have been reading and looking at all of the codes and my Dell Inspiron 1526 must be special. It has a code that I cannot find anywhere. I has a solid "9" (first light), and a flashing "4" and "(third light)". My computer appears to come on, immediately goes to this code after a brief cycling of lights on the control panel. No video or anything else happening other than the fan turning. I removed the memory modules, swapped them, tried one at a time, to no avail. Does anyone have a clue as to what could be wrong with it. Thanks in advance.