Yesterday morning I plugged in my computer. I reached for the power button on my Dell Dimension 8400, but then noticed that the tower’s power light was flashing orange. In my Dell manual, I found the section about power light signals and read:
If the power light is blinking amber – The computer is receiving electrical power, but an internal power problem might exist.
Ensure that the voltage selection switch is set to match the AC power at your location (if applicable).
Ensure that the processor power cable is securely connected to the system board (see page 73).
Well, I was sure that the voltage selection switch was in the right place. And I found it highly unlikely that the processor power cable would suddenly unseat itself. Ugh.
Then I had an idea. I flipped off the surge protector and then flipped it back on.
Tada! No more orange lights. Weird.
The moral of the story: try the simple stuff first.
Many visitors have provided additional solution ideas in the comments section below.
In my case it was the small circuit board in the front of the case that runs the power switch, front usb, and audio jacks. replacing it fixed it.
Just FYI,
I have worked on hundreds of Dell’s and if you get an amber power led the easyest fix is to 1) unplug everything I mean everything. Dell systems store the last power state in the DMI part of the bios. After a short or surge the system will not boot unless it’s just the CPU, MEM, You’ll even need to pop out the BATT, so the bios will reset. Works everytime. Really not VID, HDD, FDD, USB, CD’s, KYB, Mouse, Fans, just CPU and MEM. Also unplug the power cord and give it like 5 Minutes to set. The plug er in and watch for the green light to come on for a sec then off, if that happens then your ready to roll. WARNING! do not run the system just press the power button and wait 2 or 3 secs for two(2) beeps and shut er down. Put everything back, Plug er in and TADA!
thanks jim! your a real life saver i did everything and shazam it worked! ty sooooo much!!!!
Hi I have a flashing amber light on my pc(Dell) I tried swapping out the power supply with a blue one but it doesn’t help, but do you have any other suggestions as to how I can solve this because I am not the best with computers.
I am following you advice for an amber light.
I am confused about what to have pluged in when I restart my Dell. I have it ALL unpluged now, CPU & MEM boards included, also the battery is out. After waiting the 5 min do I plug in the CPU & MEM before pluging the power cord into the wall? When does the battery go back in? Are the other plugs reconnected after the green light appears? I am not a techy but need to solve the amber problem since I am out of warranty. Thanks for the help.
Jim,
Thanks for the tip!
I replaced both the power supply and motherboard. Not sure this was necessary but I had the parts so I did. Being a novice I wasn’t sure?
Did your unplug thing and bingo the blue light shined and beeps sounded. Turned it off and plugged everything in and it ran perfectly.
I will run it for a while before I claim victory?
I got tired of not understanding these computers so when my daughters computer was hit with lightning and didn’t have any warranty I decided to give it a try.
Nice to have people like you that are willing to share their knowledge.
Tom in Pa!
hey jym, i followed your directions exactly. only my memory sticks are in, my cpu, and the plug into the power supply. Removed or unplugged everything including the battery. But when i plug in the power cord to the psu, a steady amber light comes on and off. Any help?
it doesnt wor plz help me by giving me some other methods to solve the problem
Hey Jim
I have a Dell Dimension 3000, and the power light would stay on orange and the processor light would stay on green, after a little while, it turned off itself and i plugged everything out for like an hour and suddenly the orange/amber light kept flashing.
So I took the wires out again and repeated that step and when I connected all the wires after 30 minutes , that amber light was still flashing
What do I do?
Please Reply ASAP
Thanks
Ravin
Hmm done what you asked… and it seemed soon as i plugged the power coard in it was back to the amber light without hitting the power button…??
Jim, worked for me thanks a million. Didn’t really know what I was unplugging inside the box, but did just that unplugged everything and removed the quarter size battery. Then plugged in what I assumed wax the CPU plugged it in and then things stated to happen. Unplugged the power plugged everything back in and to my amazement it worked. Forgot to reset date and time but that was discovered before I did to much work. Thanks!!! B
Okay, and if this is the twentieth time this has happened, and you’ve been doing this exact process for over a month now, do you have any advice? Or are all Dells just crappy?
I went away for a year only to return to the orange flashing light. The cause I think being the fact I didn’t have a surge protector attached to it for all that time and it must of been hit at some point.
Using the above advice I replaced the motherboard battery and low and behold all is up and running. Boot it up, do everything I need to do, but after turning it off again, I can’t get it back – same orange blinker.
Replace the battery with another new one, and back again. Now set up with a surge protector and everything so shouldn’t be a problem, everythings fine, until I turn it off and it’s all back to square one.
Is there something wrong with my power supply that it is killing the battery everytime? Would I need to replace the whole power supply? I don’t really want to change that little CR2032 everytime I want to use the computer… Any suggestion?
Thanks everyone, followed the suggestions, checked USBs, unplugged all devices, cards, memory, replaced battery, finally swapped power supply with another Dell in the house – ta da! All better. Cracked open the power supply – two bad capacitors.
If you are not familiar with these terms – you may not be up to fixing the problem and should take it in to be repaired. Things like power supplies can be quite dangerous. I worked on computers for years and my husband is an electrical engineer or we would not have known how to get to this point with the computer.
I have also have a Dell 8400 machine, I went away for a week and on my return – nothing – just dead. No lights. I had noticed previously that computer wouldnt come out of hibernation mode, so I had to reset, but adjusted the settings so it would not hibernate.
I did have a few problems before with the ‘infamous high speed fan’ but always restarted the machine and all was well.
I have looked for dodgy caps but they all look good, I have replaced the power supply, but now all I see now is the flashing amber light. This occurs whether the machine is connected to any power output and with or without any peripherals connected.
Does anyone have an idea before I scrap the unit which has served me well for the last four years.
Many thanks
Matt Caney
I found the problem, in my case, was that I cannot turn on the computer with the Epson NX300 plugged into the USB. It causes the BLINKING ORAGNGE ….. EVERY TIME !! When I unplug it, the computer starts just fine. I also had this problem with an HP I had and an Epson 4800. It seems that SOME USB plug-ins draw too much voltage for the computer to complete the boot process. Wierd problem …. but, I have solved it just by knowing this.
Vended USB pin! Worked like a magic after unbending it! Thank u for sharing the tip
worked like a charm,, bent and broken usb plug on the front ,, Dell Diminsion 3100
SOLVED My XPS 420 was doing the amber blinking light and i replaced the power supply and still nothing. BUT after i unhooked the I/O cord for the front usb ports and the switch from the motherboard with the power plugged in it turned right on. Turns out one of my usb ports is broken in the front and one of the terminals was shorting out against the inside wall of the usb port. i just bent it back so it wasnt touching the inside wall of the usb port and BINGO it starts up fine. So if any of you have damaged front USB ports that could be your problem!
wow– i was sure i was looking at a bad ps or mb, thought i would do one last search to see what might going on and saw your post. went and looked at all usb ports on my 9100 and sure enough one the of usb pins was bent. straightened it out and powered right up WOW! love it. thanks for posting!!!!!!!!
Thank you Patrick! I found bent pins in my front (damaged) USB port. One was shorted – unbent it and bingo!
Thanks again!
Mine was even easier than that, I just reseated the 20pin connector on the motherboard on a Dell Optiplex GX80.
I have a dell e521, the orange light / thermal shutdown cmos message happens once a week.
Taking out the battery, waiting for 15 minutes solves the problem, I just have to setup the bios.
When it first occured I swapped the power supply – now i’m not sure if I spent the money wise..
Any ideas? No usb bending, no leeking capacitors, it just stoppes.
Hey
Thanks John for this wonderful website
Thanks Jerther for mentioning the USB relationship with the Amber light flashing and Thanks Ian for a simplified post
Mine was just the USB bent pins, thought I would have to pay zillions fixing my comp. but a read through on this page, a few straightened USB pins and Kaboom i have my pc back!
I also still prefer Dell Desktops, they are worse products out there and Dell is highly durable, they can run for a week non-stop and still act like a high class computer
Appreciated all!!
Thanks alot!
My Dell Optiplex GX520′s power button was blinking orange and it didn’t work. I tried cleaning the dust and searching the web for an answer for an hour and then I finally found this. Turns out, like most people, one of my USB Pins was bent, so I made it straight and my computer worked again!
Once again, thanks alot!
-Radi.
hello, i installed new windows on my dell computer, and after the installation i saw a message on my Optiplex flat monitor GX 150 that “cannot display this video mode.
What do i do?
I just fixed my blinking amber light problem!!! Woohoo. I had to replace the power supply, gx520 dell optiplex power supply off ebay used 27$. My computer went into permanent blinking amber when my son plugged the mouse usb connecter in one of the front ports(the broken tab port with the bent usb leads) Doing this in the past would power off the computer…this last time burnt up the power supply. I tested the old and new power supplies by taking small wire and connecting/shorting the green and black wires on the 24 pin mother board connector. Only the new power supplies fan would come on. The computer still did’nt work, so I disconnected then front I/0 usb little green board and the power supply and hard drive worked without that in the loop. Next I bent those little leads inside the usb port to straighten then out. Reconnected the I/0 usb little green board to the mother board and it fired right up. I still do get an error….like “drive 1 not connected” Oh well it works fine and man I cleaned a lot of dust out of that thing…..
3/18/11
I have a Dimension 9200/XPS 410 and had a blinky orange power light.
I tried resetting UPS Power Surge… no luck
I unplugged USB devices and unplugged/reseat Power…. no luck
I ended up reseating the newly replaced CMOS battery, and switched the clear CMOS jumper, and held the Power button… Cleared the light after reseating power…. no luck on boot
I ended up disassembling PSU, per:
http://www.aplusperfect.com/articles/fix-dell-cx305n-power-supply
and noticed nothing bulding or bursting.
Dusted it out with Canned air, and reassembled.. plugged it all back in… SUCCESS
Thanks!
Success!
I was just about to start trying the list of things I’ve read about here to try to fix the blinking amber light on my computer (Dell Dimension) and went to sit down and it’s up and running! Yesterday, I tried turning it off and on several times, turning the surge protector off and on, and nothing. So, I turned it off overnight, turned it on this morning, saw the blinking light again and found this list. So, one more thing to try would be to turn it off overnight! Thankfully, it worked for me since I am completely computer illiterate-lol.
Thanks so much for your post. After reading some pretty gruesome “power supply” and “replace mother board posts” recycling the power strip saved the day (LITERALLY….)
I had the same blinking amber light problem and found out that the front I/O board is bad. Zap a new one in and VOILA.
Dell part # X8921 I believe.
i have a Dell Dimension, it automatically shut down, and when i tried to turn it on, a solid orange light appears. it tired doing some procedures that I’ve read here, but it does not work. What will I do? i hope you could answer my question. Thanks.
Charles
its Dell Dimension 3000. Thanks
Charles
Hi, I have a dell gx280 with the same problem, the orange power light is blinking I did everything but still the power light is still blinking until I get the power supply then switch the volts in 150 then there is a short circuit happened. Can I still used the power supply?
What could be the problem with my dell pc it flashs orange nothing comes on and the light by the cmos battery lights orange ,i pulled out all the plugs and i reseated everything but its not the capacatitors either but i noticed the apc/power adaptor has brown sparked or burnt spots,could it be my power supply?
i have a problem with my dell inspiron mini. I plugged already the charger but still no lights appear. When i pressed the power on, an orange and white color blinks quickly. My notebook is new and used it often. It’s my first time to charge and this problem come up. I thought it just hibernated but nothing happens. Pls. Help me so that i can charge my notebook and use it to test our new router.
To shesagordie,Johnc122,Bev and J. who recently wrote a response to the flashing power button. I recently write a response to this issue and resolved it with a new power supply. The original one was A 02, 300watt. system. The new one is 400 watts. The original system was over 5 years old and just got tired and had nothing to do with warrantee. Just like a car battery, its life is limited.
I had the system checked by the GEEK squad from Best Buy and found that the original power supply had virtually no power left. Bought a new power supply to match up with the old one and had them install it and now the system runs perfectly.
Are you kidding me? Geek Squad told you that your original power supply had “virtually no power left”? OMG MurGor… they scammed you big time. Listen, a “Power Supply” does not supply power to the unit by itself. It is NOT a battery. A power supply simply regulates, corrects, and modifies your home’s electrical current to allow it to be used by a PC. Once again, the power supply (PSU) does NOT have a capacity of power in it that can be drained over time.
LOL, these “tech support” jerks take people like you for a ride every day, and I’m sorry they did. Now, the fact that you needed a new PSU is irrefutable; it fixed your issue. But not because it “ran out of power” LOL. I can’t believe (or, rather, sadly I can believe) that these people scam others into thinking things like this. Most likely you had a bad PSU capacitor or some other internal component, not “virtually no power left”!
PLease help!!
I have a dell vostro A860, when I put my 4400mAh original battery and plug in the power supply the battery light blinks orange for some seconds and turn off. I also tried to charge a 5200mAH battery but the battery light illuminates blue for some seconds and switches off.
Thank you very much
Hi have a dell dimention 5100c .When i turn it on it loads up and runs good fro a bout 2 minutes and then the monitor goes blank with a yellow light but the coputer is still running. It will stay on in safe mode .
can newer used heat-sinks work on a older dell-3000 desktop computer because on my moms PC her heat-sink get really hot then well at first when i turn it on it only stays on for a few secs then goes on and off over an over and her heat-sink gets really hot & its a aluminum heat-sink and on my dell dimension 3000 it has a copper heat-sink and i have 2 newer dell computers and was wanting to use the part off them for my older dell and after i take the heat-sink off what kind of glue do i use for the bottom of the heat-sink or were could i buy it the glue.
anyone
As I was experiencing weird freeze issues on my Dell Dimension 9200 which is now 4 years old, and software apparently not being the issue, I made a last desperate try, changing the PSU from the original Dimension 9200 one (375W) to a new Silencer 500W (www.pcpower.com – Dell Compatible – the 9200 being in the compatibility list).
The new PSU does not boot, and I have the orange blinking light (while the old one still boots). I checked all the above (Power Surge, USB ports, changed CMOS battery, unplugged all cards, HDDs, …) without success.
Any other ideas ? The PSU is brand new, so I suppose it should work. How can I check that ?
hey i am working with a Poweredge SC 1425, after coming into work after a weekend i noticed that the server would not give me a POST or any output when i powered it on.
someone was meant to be fixing some hardware in it and i think the jumpers got moved around or something while it was going on. anyway i didnt bring a UBD or bootable USB into work today but are there any other suggestions? i have already D/Cd all the internal peripherals, taken out the battery etc…
had the same problem of amber lidhting
one of the front usb pins were shorting the board
I also had the same problem that orange light was blinking, then after reading on this web page, i check front panel usb ports and i found that one pin was short/bent, I solved this problem. Thanks.
Also had this problem – replaced CMOS battery and all is well.
BTW if you don’t have a spare CMOS battery on hand, just remove the one on the board, it should still start up but will beep and then complain about missing battery, just hit F1 and it will load windows. Good way to test if its the CMOS issue or not for you if you don’t have a spare one laying around.
It can also be a dead board and effort and parts are not worth it….yank the drive and get a new more powerful unit for $400.
I did what Jim said above and it worked! The only problem I’m having now is the monitor won’t respond to the computer. i.e. The screen says “no signal”.
Any suggestions?
I just change my Dell Dimension 8300 baterry… first it works fine… after a few minutes the screen became blank… and the pc just wont stop rebooting…. i was panic and i switch off my power supply… after i turned it back on, a flashing orange light appears at my power button….
i dont know wat to do….
anybody please help me
TQ
I have a a dell dimension e521, working perfectly until I tried to turn it on an hour ago… Now I am NOT in the slightest bit technical but the stuff you’ve said above seems to match my problem, computer boots up, all lights look fine on tower and fans are working but screen won’t turn on (usualy turns on automatically when turning base on). Instead it has orange light. When I press button on screen it goes briefly green then back to orange… It sounds like I need to disconnect everything and plug back in but I’m clueless – PLEASE HELP!
If you could please talk me through what to do, in the plainest, simplest possible way I would be SO grateful!
initially, select ‘shut down’ on screen, or press power off button and screen blanked, processor stopped but power button remained white (blue) and fan kept running (also had power indicated at rear led). next, typical ‘orange blinking power button light’. pulled CMOS battery for 10 minutes and all is well. (assume we had an electrical surge that got thru my protector and had to clear BIOS power settings).
nice forum here. very helpful. thanks.
my machine is a xps9100, by the way.
Check those front USB ports! Had 2 Precision 390′s. Same issue. Wouldn’t start. Flashing orange power light. USB plastic tab had been pulled out and pins were exposed and bent causing short. Straightened them out and good to go. No need for a new I/O board.
thankxxxxxxxx dude
A have this solid orange light and fan stays on, i tried the unplugging and no respond.
oh jim that doesnt worke ?
plz help me for the umber light on my optiplux 755
Same flashing A lock light, reseating memory worked for me.
Sir,
I am having dell studio 1450 laptop. The battery is now no more charging from charger. When I plug charger and press power button there are 4 amber light following 1 white light light flashing but laptop not powering on. May be due to dead charge in battery. But when I removed battery and plug charger it working fine, but there is no any light flash(status indicator). I shown my laptop to 2-3 local laptop repair technicians. They all have different views, one said this is failure of motherboard need to replace motherboard, another said that battery charging circuit failure. And one another said that battery needs to be replaced no problem in motherboard. I am not having any spare battery to check. May be I have to purchase new one and check is this battery problem or motherboard. Could you help me in this problem.
Thanks.
The unplug method worked a few months ago on a Dell Precision 390. But I have the same problem on another 390 and had to replace the front I/O panel and now it comes up with an error upon boot ‘Air temperature sensor not Detected’ Don’t know if I have a bad I/O board or I hurt something doing all the unplugging before hand.
Does any one know where the ‘Air temperature sensor is’ ?
(dell)humm why problem this machine problem any machine work so good but orange light whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy plz sole and how can doo this Rea place connector and open power supply Another power supply connect but same condition same work
In my case, the amber light was because the HD was damaged, trying with another one showed a green light again.
Thank you.
This is great post I had amber blinking fast power light and it was a USB front port. I fixed the pins so they would not ground out and Bam all working now. Thanks for these post.
In my case it is exactly (happens on my old DELL Latitude C810 since yesterday):
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/batteries_sitelet/en/batteries_faq?c=us&l=en&cs=04#faq37
Q What does it mean when I push the button on the battery to determine the amount of charge, and alternating LED lights flash?
A This is an indication that the battery is not working properly. The battery should be replaced.
When I remove one of the batteries everything seems to be OK again. Also the button on the battery itself indicates the error described at FAQ37 mentioned above.
.Thanx to all the suggestions on this thread
I have a Dell XPS 720. Before I left the house I stared my antivirus
program. When I got back a few hrs later the pc was still on. Antivirus seemed
to be stuck. I tried to cancel ..no luck. Restart on the pc got stuck. I then
powered down the pc by power button and then turned back on……….amber flashing
light. I tried most of the suggestions..no luck. I put in a new 3V battery everything
back to normal. As others have said ” TRY THE SIMPLE THINGS FIRST !!!”
Back to fragging.
Hey! Thanks for the info. I unplugged the computer from the power source for about a minute and then plugged it back in. Voila! Good as new.
My Dell C521 tower has a slow flashing amber light. After a few minutes the blinking amber light is gone. It will not boot up. When I push the power button, I see an amber light in one of the two usb ports in the front of the machine. Is this important? or is it just a reflection from the internal amber light? Tried to unplug everything, waited 20 minutes and did not work. (Did not remove battery) Don’t know where that is. Could someone walk me through checking to see if one of the pins is bent? Do I need to remove the cover or is it obvious when you look? Thanks for your help!