Dell Optiplex 320 dead

[Jobos]

I've got a Dell Optiplex 320 which is dead apart from a flashing amber light on the power button. Any ideas?

[flyinghaggis]

We had this happen on nearly all of our Optiplex GX270's. Turned out to be faulty capacitors in the PSU's. We had all of ours swapped under warranty for this problem in fact.

 

I'd try changing the PSU for another one if you can.

[riskyburden]

1. Change the power supply for a known good one.

2. Take all the H/D's and DVD Drives off

3. Unplugged everything except the keyboard and mouse

4. Try that

5. If its still blinking then its one of three things (I hope)

* USB port shorting so check the pins and use PS2 keyboard and mouse

* * Dust under the processor

* * * Motherboards blown (you might see some corrosion around a capacitor) or if its very dusty give it a blast with compressed air

 

Hope that helps

[MikW]

Definately sounds like a faulty PSU, we have loads of optiplex pc and a number of GX520's have had the same problem.

I'd agree with flyinghaggis, if you have one you can swap out and test i'd do that.

[plexer]

PSU or Blown caps on motherboard.

 

Ben

[6Foot2]

Do the 320s not have diagnostic LEDs [LED 1, 2, 3, 4] which could point you in the right direction?

 

Depending upon the combination of steady/flashing LEDs the machine might attempt a self diagnosis.

[witch]

We had this - 'twas the PSU

[timbo343]

ive had this many times, like the others, is usually the PSU. Take one out from a working machine and see if it is that.

[Jobos]

Luckily the machine was still within warranty by a few weeks so I called Dell and after 23 minutes of on phone fault finding the call centre decided to send an engineer. The engineer called the next day and duly replaced the PSU and motherboard.

 

Prizes are in the post for those who guessed correctly

[AHeighton]

Sadly they didn't learn their lesson with their older models, we have over a hundred Optiplex GX620s and I saw a capacitor on the board physically explode. Had a capacitor in an exhaust fan physically explode and they replaced that even though it was outside warranty because when I said the word "explode", a manager came on the phone sounding a bit worried!

 

It's such a shame they let their machines down by cutting corners on capactiors that cost pence.