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I have a Dell Inspiron 5160 laptop. Was working fine, but now does not power up at all. When plugged in, I touch the power button and all three lights blink green for a fraction of a second. THen only the light on far right blinks ten times yellow/amber. Nothing else happens. What does this mean? Is it the power cord that's the problem or the internal battery? If I remove the battery I get nothing at all. I do not have a spare power cord or battery to test this further. Any advice? I've done some searches and see that this is a problem with 5100 Dells, but I can't seem to find a thread that will take me in the direction of correctly diagnosing the problem with my machine (and I need to fix this asap!) Thanks.

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Dani AI

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Repeated amber/white flashes on Dell portables are not random — they’re POST diagnostic codes that point at a hardware area (CPU, BIOS/ROM, memory, power rails, etc.). See Dell’s reference table for Inspiron diagnostic indicators for how blink counts map to subsystems. (Dell’s guide also explains that diagnostic LED activity overrides normal battery/charge indicators.)
Dell: A reference guide to Inspiron notebook diagnostic indicators

Practical checks (in order): verify the AC outlet and the adapter’s LED, try a known-good adapter if possible, remove the main battery and boot on AC only, and perform a power drain (hold the power button ~15–35 seconds) to remove residual charge. If the adapter’s brick LED lights when unplugged from the laptop but goes out when plugged in, that can indicate a board short. These are Dell’s recommended first steps for “no power” symptoms.
Dell: Troubleshoot power issues / No power guide

The Inspiron 5150/5160 family commonly used the PA‑13 (≈19.5 V, 6.7 A / 130 W) adapter — using a wrong or damaged adapter can create confusing symptoms, so confirm adapter specs before buying replacements. If the system briefly revived after reseated internal cables, that strongly suggests an intermittent connector/contact problem (reseating RAM, battery cable or keyboard/power-board ribbon often fixes these). If you attempt internal work, follow the 5160 service manual precautions and drain power first.
(Example PA‑13 spec page: https://www.storeshoppe.com/products/la130pm121-ac-adapter-charger-for-dell-19-5v-6-7a-130w-7-5mm-5-0mm)
5160 Owner / Service manual (procedure & cautions)

If the 10‑amber flashes persist after adapter tests, hard reset and careful reseating, the fault is increasingly likely on the system board / power rails and usually requires professional repair or a donor motherboard — contact Dell support if under warranty.

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Member Avatar for Suspishio

Is the power block warm? If not, it's failing to charge the battery and you're out of charge.

Looks like some sort of pwer problem as I think you've judged. See page 15 of your manual for some guidance.

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

can you find the phone number for dell support? those guys are very helpful

Member Avatar for Member #248678

Thanks for the input/advice. Next time I'll call the Dell support line as you suggest to see what they have to say - I should have given them a chance. I have a friend who had a bad experience with Dell support, so I guess that's why I stayed away.
For any of you who face this same problem, here's what I did. Although I'm a (complete) novice, I did some research and learned how to get inside the laptop, get under the keyboard and check all the connections, particularly the cable to/fr the battery, and also the memory cards. Interesting project for a novice, and perhaps quite a risky thing to do.
But - to my surprise, my rather blind and tentative efforts solved the problem. I truly couldn't tell you what went right, but the once dead machine came alive, and is working perfectly well again. I can only surmise that some connection was not firing, and by disconnecting and reconnecting it, I got it matched up again.
I'm now much the wiser, though, as a result of my research. I now realize that the problem may occur again and I may not be able to revive the machine again without significant cost and angst.
I'm pleased for now to have a working machine, with no regrets about trying something new and different (that is, pretending to be the tech I'm not).

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