Troubleshooting Your Computer; Power Led Diagnostics - Dell DES12314 Owner's Manual

Troubleshooting Your Computer

You can troubleshoot your computer using indicators like Diagnostic Lights, Beep Codes, and Error Messages during the
operation of the computer.

Power LED Diagnostics

The power button LED located on the front of the chassis also functions as a bicolored diagnostic LED. The diagnostic
LED is only active and visible during the POST process. Once the operating system starts to load, it is no longer visible.
Amber LED blinking scheme – The pattern is 2 or 3 blinks followed by a short pause then x number of blinks up to 7. The
repeated pattern has a long pause inserted in the middle. For example 2,3 = 2 amber blinks, short pause, 3 amber blinks
followed by long pause then repeats.
Table 14. Power LED Diagnostics
Amber LED State White LED State
off off
off blinking
blinking off
steady off
off steady
Amber LED State Description
2,1 system board failure
2,2 system board, PSU or PSU cabling failure
2,3 system board, memory or CPU failure
2, 4 coin-cell battery failure
2,5 corrupt BIOS
2,6 CPU configuration failure or CPU failure
2,7 memory modules are detected, but a memory failure
3,1 possible peripheral card or system board failure
3,2 possible USB failure
3,3 no memory modules are detected
3,4 possible system board error
3,5 memory modules are detected, but a memory configuration or compatibility error
3,6 possible system board resource and/or hardware failure
48
Description
system is OFF
system is in sleep state
power supply unit (PSU) failure
PSU is working but failed to fetch code
system is ON
5