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.
Thank you for the tip about the bent USB pin ! I checked the two front USB ports and sure enough, one of them was bent. Straightened it out and EUREKA! we have boot up again!! I was getting ready to drop $900 for a new computer, but now my Dimension 5100 has a little more life left. My wife was hoping this meant we were upgrading to a new PC, but alas, not yet. That’s OK. The budget wasn’t quite ready for it anyway. We’ll have our upgrade soon enough.
I’ve been dealing with this blinking amber light issue for the past 5 hrs.
Did everything within this thread… then read “Jim’s” mssg about the cmos battery.
That did it — I got lights other than amber… but now I have that BLUE screen … and i’m stuck.
A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
If this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Any ideas??
I found my Dell Diagnostic disk, and i’m walking thru that… but i have no idea if this will work or not. I can not recall 6 yrs ago to see if i did a boot disk… i highly doubt it.
I had the flashing amber and the smell of electrical components burning. I immediately assumed the power supply and purchased a new one from Dell. After installing it, the amber still flashed. After finding this thread, I looked and found a bad USB port. It had bent pins and the tab that holds the pins was gone. I straightened the pins so they wouldn’t ground out, but still the amber flashed. I unplugged all USB attachments, still the same. I removed the video card from the AGP slot…there was the culprit. As soon as that was out, the Dell 5100 booted up. I installed the original video card that came with the machine and we are back in business.
i found a broken USB cable caused a problem,many thanks to the many people who contributed to this thread.