BleepingComputer.com: Power Problem with the Dell Dimension 5150

Good evening everyone.

Today I woke up and did my normal routine. Afterwards, I of course, sat my lazy butt down on my computer chair. I always leave my computer on overnight, have been doing so for years on end. Anyways, after hitting spacebar three times and shaking the mouse around, I realized it wasn't on.

"Oh, yesterday was Sunday...windows update must have done its routine updates as it does every Monday at 3:00 AM." But why hadn't it turned back on? I quickly looked at the tower and noticed the power button was a flashing amber light. As I looked this up under the proper documentation, I knew this was not going to be a fun ride.

The flashing amber light denotes a power problem. This could be anywhere from a fried power supply unit, to a simple USB pin that is slightly bent. Stupid power can mean anything with this computer.

I tried working on it for the better half of the day. The power supply unit is a 480 volt Antec PSU. Has been running fine for as long as I have it. Upon opening the computer, I noticed it was very dusty. I cleaned what I could as I didn't have a can of air duster readily available...But it was still dusty. I moved on.

I made sure all the proper wires were connected. I also checked for any of the USB metal to see if it was bent or out of place, but that all seemed fine. Finally, I decided I would go to Best Buy and just buy a similar PSU to see if the PSU had fried.

I came home and replaced it after making sure it was compatible. Took the Antec PSU and sniffed it to see if I could smell any signs of burnt wire. It kind of smelled like it, but I'm not sure if anything was actually fried.

After all, the led light on the mother board still comes on when I try to boot it up, and when I took out the back up battery the led light still came on.

Anyways, after switching out the PSU, I had no luck, so I switched them back. I also bought the proper air duster and cleaned it so that the fan, the heat sink apparatus, and everything else was dust-free.


....Still have a blinking amber light and I'm not exactly sure what to do. Any insight or guidelines would be very appreciated!

You can go ahead and close this topic. I'm not sure if anyone was working on it anyways, but thanks if you were looking into it . Source of my problem was the video card. I guess it was causing some kind of power short. Anyways, going to send it off to XFX for warranty. If anyone faces this problem in the future I suggest you try to take parts out one by one and try to find the source of your problem. Thanks!

Thanks for posting your resolution...happy computing .

Louis