Dell E520 Solid Orange/Amber light

[sscot600]

Hello, my Dell has recently come up with a problem. I was using it for about 15 minutes and all of the sudden, it crashed. I wasnt in the room when it did but when I walked in, it was on and there was a black screen. I button powered it down and now when I turn it on, it shows a solid amber light. The cpu fan cranks up to full speed and the hard drive light and the 1 2 3 4 lights are solid amber too. I tried each stick of ram, took out my video card and tried a different power supply from a parted computer i had laying around and it still didnt do anything. It is a hot day today so could this be a overheating issue even though its been on longer on hotter days and it was fine?

 

[sscot600]

actually, i dont think that the 1 2 3 4 and the hard drive light is amber, its just the light from the power button

Can someone please help me, i need this computer!!!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Are you getting any HDD activity at all?

 

[sscot600]

actually, today i put it back together and it booted up. i dont know what was causing it but ill post if it happens again.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Cool glad its running!

 

[Ubrales]

Some Dell computers will fail to boot and show an amber light at the start button. This happened a few times to my Optiplex 745 and every time it was because I had an external USB hard disk plugged into the front USB port. When I unplugged the ext. USB drive the computer started fine. This computer will not start when there is an external USB disk plugged in.

On my other Dell WS 490 the problem is a little different. I can use the external USB drive only with SATA power ( ~ 0.5 Amp) and not with the AC power adapter plugged into the ext. drive (2.5" drive).

I just have to remember these things when I start these 2 Dell computers.