Flashing yellow/amber light on pc

I have a pc that when turned on the pc displays a yellow/amber flashing light
Anyone know what that would mean?
I have a Dell Dimension 2400

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Comments

Ricka182

On my case the yellow light is for HD activity. It flashes on and off all the time, especially when doing a search or indexing, anything that access the HD.

D-boy

but the pc won't turn on

, it's not my pc, it's a friends... I haven't been round there to troubleshoot so not sure really, until I get round to his house.....

jacev1

D-boy wrote:

I have a pc that when turned on the pc displays a yellow/amber flashing light
Anyone know what that would mean?
I have a Dell Dimension 2400

Will you have internet access when you get there? Does he have more than 1 PC? If not, you might want to ask for his Dell "service tag" & check out Dell website(support page) before showing up to troubleshoot?

Or I can be a nice guy and post a link that might help you:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim2400/en/sm_en/advtshoo.htm

Good Luck!

TheShadow

You imply a single LED.

Well assuming the led is in the front and is not the 4 diagnostic LED's in the back then you most likely have an over-current condition. Most systems, not just Dells, flash the power light or by default the HD led will do, because the power supply cycles up, sees an over-current condition and cycles down. The process repeats itself over and over to prevent a fire. The internal fuse in a power supply only covers a faulty supply.

Unfortunately this condition may indicate a faulty motherboard; generally the capacitors that are part of the CPU secondary supply on the motherboard. Look for capacitors that are not absolutely flat on the top, they are little can's with a X or K grooved in the metal tops. They are located around the CPU chip socket. If they are bowed or have a brown ooze it is the result of hydrogen build up shorting them out and they must be replaced. It is not worth it generally unless it is an expensive server or you are really attached to the system.