System diagnostic lights
Battery-status light
Indicates the power and battery-charge status.
Solid white
— Power adapter is connected and the battery has more than 5 percent charge.
Amber
— Computer is running on battery and the battery has less than 5 percent charge.
Off
●
Power adapter is connected and the battery is fully charged.
●
Computer is running on battery and the battery has more than 5 percent charge.
●
Computer is in sleep state, hibernation, or turned off.
The power and battery-status light blinks amber along with beep codes indicating failures.
For example, the power and battery-status light blinks amber two times followed by a pause, and then blinks white three times
followed by a pause. This 2,3 pattern continues until the computer is turned off indicating no memory or RAM is detected.
The following table shows different power and battery-status light patterns and associated problems.
Table 11. LED codes
Diagnostic light codes
Problem description
2,1
Processor failure
2,2
System board: BIOS or ROM (Read-Only Memory) failure
2,3
No memory or RAM (Random-Access Memory) detected
2,4
Memory or RAM (Random-Access Memory) failure
2,5
Invalid memory installed
2,6
System-board or chipset error
2,7
Display failure
2,8
LCD power rail failure.
3,1
Coin-cell battery failure
3,2
PCI, video card/chip failure
3,3
Recovery image not found
3,4
Recovery image found but invalid
3,5
Power-rail failure
3,6
System BIOS Flash incomplete
Camera status light:
Indicates whether the camera is in use.
●
Solid white — Camera is in use.
●
Off — Camera is not in use.
Caps Lock status light:
Indicates whether Caps Lock is enabled or disabled.
●
Solid white — Caps Lock enabled.
●
Off — Caps Lock disabled.
Recovering the operating system
When your computer is unable to boot to the operating system even after repeated attempts, it automatically starts Dell
SupportAssist OS Recovery.
Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery is a standalone tool that is preinstalled in all Dell computers installed with Windows operating
system. It consists of tools to diagnose and troubleshoot issues that may occur before your computer boots to the operating
system. It enables you to diagnose hardware issues, repair your computer, back up your files, or restore your computer to its
factory state.
Troubleshooting
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