Finally got a client's old Dell Optiplex to boot after 3 weeks of troubleshooting

I picked up this Dell Optiplex 7010 from a small law office in Pasadena that couldn't afford to replace it. It was stuck in a boot loop with no POST beeps whatsoever. I swapped the power supply first, no change. Then I tried reseating the RAM sticks one at a time, still nothing. After 3 weeks of testing parts on and off the clock, I finally pulled the CMOS battery and let it sit for 15 minutes. That did it, booted right up like nothing was ever wrong. Feels good to get that win especially since the client was about to trash it and buy a whole new setup. Has anyone else had a stubborn boot issue that ended up being something that simple? I'd love to hear what fixed yours.

3 comments

3 Comments

violag806d ago

Man I feel you on that one. I had a similar headache with a customers old HP ProDesk that just would not post no matter what I tried. I spent a good two weeks swapping out parts, testing the power button, even checked the motherboard for blown caps with a magnifying glass. Finally, out of pure frustration I unplugged everything and just left it sitting on my bench over the weekend. When I came back Monday morning it booted up perfectly first try. I still have no idea what happened but it makes you wonder how many machines get tossed for something that tiny. Its always the simplest fix that gets you in the end, makes you feel both relieved and a little dumb at the same time. That feeling when it finally fires up is worth all the frustration though.

quinn1616d ago

I gotta push back on that a little. Three weeks of swapping parts and you didn't try the CMOS battery pull on day one? That's the first thing I do on any old machine that acts dead for no reason, especially Dells and HPs from that era. Reseating RAM and checking caps is good but the battery trick takes thirty seconds and saves you from tearing your hair out. Glad it worked out in the end, but next time just grab a screwdriver and pop that battery first, you'll save yourself two weeks and a weekend of staring at a dead board.

the_brian5d ago

Yeah I actually just saw a video from one of those old PC repair guys on YouTube talking about this exact thing. He was saying a lot of these older boards especially from the Core 2 era will do this weird thing where the CMOS corruption makes the board think it has a bad BIOS or something and it just sits there doing nothing. He called it a "false dead" state. I've had it happen on a couple Optiplex 780s where pulling the battery and holding the power button for like 30 seconds to drain the residual juice brought them back to life when nothing else worked. It's crazy how such a tiny little coin cell can hold the whole system hostage like that. I try to remind people that even if the battery still has voltage it can still be causing issues from weirdness in the RTC circuit. Definitely a lesson I learned the hard way myself.