My Dell XPS bit the bullet big time. It will not attempt to boot up.

According to Dell manual. The four lights at the bottom of the front panel are diagnostic lights. They never came on before in the five years I owned this thing.

Green lights three and four stay on. According to the Dell Manual that means a memory problem. (memory failure has occurred)

Dell says to pull all memory sticks. I have four 1 gig sticks.

They advise to place one stick in slot Dimn 1

If the computer starts normally, continue to install additional modules (one at a time) until you have identified a faulty module or
reinstalled all modules without error

The problem is the pc won't start with any of the sticks. Each one failed. All I can detect running are the fans including the fan on the video card.
(they appear to be running too fast)

How likely is it all four (crucial brand) memory sticks bit the dust at the same time?

The pc reported all were working the day before on boot up. do you think it is likely the mother board that died?

A new pc is on the way. I expect to use video card/cd drives and sound card from this puppy. Also will load hard drive to see what I have.

That could happen if their speed isn't being regulated properly.


That would be my guess -- that it's a motherboard problem.


Good luck. I hope it was within your warranty period.

This happened to me recently, and in spite of the diagnostic lights it turned out to be the video card.

Interesting, Inland. I was going to suggest replacing the video card with an inexpensive low spec video card (bought specifically for troublshooting) or trying the onboard graphics (if present), but I figured the diagnostic lights would be accurate. I wonder what those lights are actually testing.

I wondered the same thing after I got off the phone with them.

I guess it just goes to show you can't assume anything when it comes to malfunctioning computers.

Thanks guys. Warranty is long gone. I will let you know if it turns out to be the video card. I bought an ecollege pc without a video card with the intent of using the card in the Dell.



I could not do that because it would not even attempt to boot. When turning it on nothing happened. The two cd/dvd drives did not attempt to engage.

You don't try to boot it until after you've replaced the card. For the onboard graphics, you can always set the BIOS to defaults if you can't see what's on screen by removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes.

If your video card is bad, the computer won't try to boot. You may hear fans, but nothing but black on the screen and no accessing of drives.

Good fun, I pulled the video card and there is no vga adaptor around so I can plug the monitor into to MB. A trip to the store tomorrow.

Three monitors in the house and not a single adaptor to be found.

A few years ago, my brother bought an inexpensive, low-capability video card just for testing. It's come in handy at times.

This pc does not have onboard graphics. Cannot plug in monitor without video card. Until I get a test card we won't know. Putting the present card in the new pc will answer that piece.