Had a problem where turning on the 8000 would show a flash of all the green lights for 2 seconds and then they shut off. Nothing from the fans, screen, HD or anything. Never even begins to post! BUT, this has happened on 3 succesive reconditioned motherboards. I've switched out CPUs, memory, video cards... same behavior?
ANY clue what's going on?
:-|
jb

dunno whats causing it buttry running the motherboard on an antistatic bag with just a CPU,Memory & A/C adapter and see what happens. If you get a difference in the light codes from what you normally get then your problem is something else. start ading things on one at a time and testing.
Hard Drives and LCD screens can cause a short circuit.

Not a bad idea. Sadly, no change. I've done this successfully before, so I'm just baffled Is there some bios initialization that's failing? I dunno... It's just bizarre that it's happened to 3 different MBs. Unless, I have a bad part that's blowing the MBs. Unfortunately, I didn't try the clean test before installing parts. On the next one, I guess...
Thanks for your response,
jb

on the motherboard itself look at the capacitors (the black things with arrows down the sides) if they appear to be buldging or even leaking then they are your problem. when they leak or have leaked they ooze a batter acid kind of looking thing and when it drys its almost like a powder. If it is the capacitors then u have 2 options try do a home repair by buying new capacitors that are the same time as the ones on your motherboard their normally really cheap to buy so i would recomend replacing all the capacitors on the motherboard. The problem with this though is that it is extremly difficult to replace because of the amount of close worked curcuits on ure motherboard a stray drop of solder could cause even more problems. The other option is to just buy new motherboards because otherwise i dont think that there is much else that u can do.

I have had about 5 break down at my work doing the repairs on them worked fine for 3 of them but u have to have a steady hand a fine tipped soldering iron and a basic knowlege of electronics. These are all just suggestions not garuntees so if u do attemp to do this then dont come complaining to me about it not having worked.

Basically the lesson to all this is that unless you replace your computer every year don't buy a dell and expect it to last Dell time and time again i have seen dells fail and as a result i no longer buy dells.

Have exactly same problem with my dell notebook 8000. How did you resolve? Response greatly appreciated.

jeepney

Unfortunately, I haven't found a solution or anyone with a solution. Someone suggested replacing all the capacitors on the MB. I'm not up for that. It would appear the symptoms indicate a dead MB.

Sorry not to have better news.

jb