Question Dell M6800 Precision Workstations Won't Boot

[wmichaelb]

I've now had two of these, and both have now spontaneously quit working. They will not turn on with or without the battery or charger. I opened up the first one, but did not find a separate charging board, so I assume both mother boards are gone. I obviously now have all the RAM and SSD's I need, but I'm wary of getting a third. Can anyone comment about their experiences with this model? Are failures rare, or have these just come to the end of their designed life? Is there a more reliable 17" model that is Linux compatible and has space for backup drives? Any suggestions are welcome, and thanks in advance.

 

[helpstar]

replace the CMOS battery with a new one

page 20 (Removing Coin-Cell battery)
https://cc.cnetcontent.com/inlineco...b5d1bd3a94cf4de98fc43b7b8da08f97/original.pdf

 

[wmichaelb]

Amazingly, that worked. I still don't understand why the BIOS date won't allow the charging light to turn on. But now it works. Thanks!

 

[helpstar]

without the battery the BIOS cannot even load default settings and therefore posts incorrectly. In the end it freezes or hangs.

 

[wmichaelb]

I always thought that the cmos battery was just there to keep the time and date info stored, not all the BIOS info. Apparently that's not the case anymore.

 

[helpstar]

it always stored the user defined settings including time and date, boot order etc. Depending on the programmer it leads only to time loss, but more often the system won´t even start. :/