Power Switch Problem - Dell Inspiron 530 Tower -

alsommer0

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Apr 28, 2015
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4,510
Power switch would not work - so I did the work-around on Tom's blog(OLOD orange light of death) - power on BUT :1st: orange light (Power UP Button)stays on(should be blue) -2nd: computer system not working - does not get to BOOT system even (where you select F2)? What's the problem?? This is a DELL Inspiron 530, I have had it for 4 or 5 years. All of a sudden power switch don't work - so I did the above work-around where you run a ground wire to chasis - it powered up but two symptoms as listed above.

Clarification: I did the wiring change mentioned on your site -(OLOD orange light of death)- that is splice into the green ground wire from the power supply, touched the wire to ground on chasis - fans came up to speed - power seemed to be on - but system did not come up?? As I mentioned above - the power button stayed orange (should have turned to blue) - system did not get to BOOT file (where you can select "F2" to modify boot sector. Just ran like that - actually hung there for-ever. I messed around some more AND finally got the system to come up by hitting POWER on/off switch. I was able to power down -then- power up system - now I am afraid to POWER OFF
AGAIN - FOR FEAR I CANNOT BRING THE SYSTEM UP AGAIN. So my question is what went wrong with the ground wire thing your site describes -(OLOD orange light of death)- . I suspect the "amber" light on the "mother board" was not lite - when the fan came on - BUT-
system did not come up. I was wondering is there is a "reset" button I could have pushed (on the mother board or where-ever)???
 
Solution
You don't need to remove the PSU to do the test, you can just unplug the 24 pin ATX and the 4 (or 8) pin from the motherboard (it would be nice to disconnect the other power cables but isn't a necessity). The problem with doing a test while the PSU is connected is that you are not isolating the PSU and all other possible factors remain in play.
The manual I linked above shows how to do a CMOS reset on page 196 "Clearing CMOS settings", I'll suggest trying that

alsommer0

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Apr 28, 2015
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4,510
Thanks for your reply - BUT I really do not want to remove the Power Supply - the solution on 'instructables' was very simple (called OLOD) -
all you do is ground the 'green' wire, to the chassis, the green wire that goes to the Power Supply - it worked for many other people on the site -
but not for me. I need to try it again.
 
You don't need to remove the PSU to do the test, you can just unplug the 24 pin ATX and the 4 (or 8) pin from the motherboard (it would be nice to disconnect the other power cables but isn't a necessity). The problem with doing a test while the PSU is connected is that you are not isolating the PSU and all other possible factors remain in play.
The manual I linked above shows how to do a CMOS reset on page 196 "Clearing CMOS settings", I'll suggest trying that
 
Solution

Dell user111

Prominent
Mar 9, 2017
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0
510
You can try to do this:
Unplug the power cord. Use the hair dryer to heat the head of the cord for 30 second or longer then plug it in the computer (in the back).
Hope, it works as it does to me.