amber light on tower

then turned green and started up.
i googled amber light on tower and power supply came up.
so how long do i have? i'm afraid to shut down might not get up. any ideas.
oh and mother board was mentioned. dell said that it might be cheaper to just buy new computer?

 

when i tried to start up the computer this morning it wouldnt start no matter how i punched the power button.
i was looking at the tower and saw an amber light on the power button. then it changed green and it started up

 

Hi Jan, as Steve has suggested the switch may be on the way out. If you have a Reset Button on your comp - they are the same as the Start button and if you have the expertise, you can change them over.
I had to do this in my wife's comp last year as switches are not readily available, hence Dell saying buy another comp. Neil.

 

steve r jones press and hold got me on tonight. i was whinning to my daughter and she thinks that i might have some kind of virus,did essentials full virus scan nothing found. but got some very strange things going on on this computer.
the device mangager goes crazy,scrolls up and down all by itself.
get a usb notice that something has malfunctioned and windows doesnt recognize it.and this little sign is like a neon sign,flashes every second. could this be a virus or something?

retiredlearner i dont know where the reset button on this computer is,got a power button.

thanks guys

 

All the Tower units we own have the Reset Button immediately below the Start Button. Newer designed cases may not utilize them.
Sure sounds like you have something controlling your computer that shouldn't be.Neil.

 

hi jan, give ESET online scan a go, and then you will know if it a virus or not that is playing around with your system.

http://www.eset.com/online-scanner

 

hawk22 eset scan picked up 2 nasties, one probably a variant of win32/agent trojan and the other a variant of win32/adwaremegasearch aa applicantion.

thanks to all for answering now got to go talk to dell since printer is no longer working.

 

When my tower power light turns amber it means my system is asleep. taking a long time to wake up may be a problem but the amber light should not..... or am I missing something?

 

Troubleshooting section of the Dell Dimension E510 Service Manual
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim5150/en/sm/tshoot1.htm#wp1114195
See section System Lights

Matt

 

oh, very interesting. good to know. Thanks Matt.

 

Hi Mitchell, not just for your information , it sounds like the information supplied to Jan.

I have come across the power LED flashing amber/orange on some Dell computers at startup and they proved to have a motherboard/power supply problem (different model).

Maybe the difference here is that "solid amber" means it is running a diagnostic test. Jan, if the model is an E510 (you only state 510 in your system details), was it solid amber? Solid amber might just be running tests, but it might also signal something more terminal. Let it run the tests and "Check the diagnostic lights to see if the specific problem is identified ".

As the instructions say "a device on the system board may be faulty or incorrectly installed ", so disconnect any devices including any add-in cards.

Matt

 

Last week I had a similar fault on my Compac Presario tha t last a few further days, finally the CPU packed in. A new and better quality CPU was purchased and fitted. Fault is no longer present.

 

i have a serious problem. i tried to run dds it came up as gobblygook nothing in english except i did recognize compaq (got a dell). pasted to new malware post and that was really interesting had no control over anything couldnt post preview the box kept changing size sometimes i could have two message boxes totally no control i did manage to minimize it and maKe sure the mouse was working,it was.
what happened? i closed out windowsbbs and started this one.
do not understand it. oh and the cpu was at 100%. i think i did what i was supposed to do, choose mirror 1 saved what i was suppose to even if it didnt make sense to me. that was scary and i dont think i like dds if its going to act like that.

 

Jan, I will try to watch your thread in the malware forum. Post back in this thread if your system is "clean ".

You might be afraid of restarting the computer because of the amber light, but you will need to consider what you are going to do if it cannot be resolved by methods other than checking the hardware (like checking the diagnostic LED lights at startup).

Can you restart and accept that you might need to find out why it won't start up normally? Do you know anyone that might be able to help if you have problems?

If you cannot find an easy fix, what happens if you need to do a restart?

Matt

 

How long is this amber light on for? My Dell computer always has had one displayed when you boot it, displayed for a couple of seconds.