Dell Latitude C600 won't start - Page 2

Thanks for the info Larry, yes I was able to find the resource needed to take sys apart. wound up cutting a small hole in the shielding to access the bios chip and shorted out pins 3 and 6 with a paper clip and useing "asset.com" from Dell to reinstall the service tag in the bios.

yes it was the bios administrator password. I still dont understand how the password got set or activated, still scratching my head on that one. I was in the bios monitoring the charge state of a battery trying to find one that was no good, I might have cut power to the system with out exiting the bios first. I ended up making a dummy for the battery slot. I couldnt see anything out of the ordinary even cleaned the area behind the connector on the motherboad ( it looked like a little corroision there but no where else) Doh... whish i had thought to use my multimeter to see if there was any bad chips in the area. I didnt mention this eariler but in bios the left side wouldnt show that a battery was installed in the slot when i was in bios, and sys would act funny almost lock up if battery was installed while in windows

I was able to finally access computer and finish setting up pcmica wireless card. It is functional at the moment, will advise customer that a motherboard will be needed if any conditons worsen. have already priced them on ebay and can get one for about 30 bucks.

thanks agian Larry hope to pick your brain later oh wait I personally own a 700m and bought a new game called two worlds I have looked on line for drivers for the video card so that i might be able to play the game any ideas? intel drivers wont work cause it's a dell Dude....LOL

I'm not sure why the BIOS password would get turned on in that case. The default setting, which is what it should change to if reset, is to have the admin password disabled. Powering off the computer while in the BIOS should only lose any changes you have made, and not reset it or enable the admin password.

If the BIOS does not see a battery in the left bay then it is definitely a problem with that connector or the charger board. My gut feeling is that the board where that connector is attached is where the problem lies.

You can get drivers for any Dell system from the Dell Support website. That will have the latest drivers released by us. You can try the Intel drivers, however, there is a small chance they might have problems (I've never seen one, but the chance does exist). As far as I know there is nothing that would prevent the drivers from the Intel site from installing. Dell doesn't support the version from the Intel site simply because we haven't officially tested it on our system(s) yet.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

Hello! [sorry,my english is not the best]
i read about LED flashing errors at latitude c610 laptops.
my problem is the same.

1. motherboard:
all lock-leds are on for about 4 or 5 seconds and 2 leds on the right side at the computer -> the power-led and the hdd-led are on
processor is an 1200Mhz Intel and 256MB Ram

2. motherboard (from ebay)
the capslock-led is flashing 10 times and on the right side the ->power-led and the hdd-led are on
processor is an 1000Mhz Intel with 256MB Ram

I changed all components,the hdd,the processor the memory and the grafics-adapter and nothing work.

Can anyone help me please?... Thanks!....

I am not sure if you are working on a Dell C610. I will assume that it is. Here are some things I use to locate problems on Dell Laptops:

1) remove the ac power and battery, hold down power button for 10-30 seconds. apply ac power and reboot.

2) If still nothing remove hard drive and cd-rom from system repeat step one.

3) you can hook up an external monitor, keyboad and/or mouse to see if those componets have problems.

4) use removed parts in a known good system

hopefully this will help, it seems like you have already reseated the memory ect. Larry might know more about codes from the lights here is his post from this thread.
All three lock lights flashing constantly indicates the process is not seated correctly. If just the scroll lock lights up it is a processor failure during POST. Caps lock only is a motherboard failure. If the caps and scroll lock lights are on, but num lock is off, it is some kind of memory failure.

The types of processors the system will support are Intel Geyserville Pentium III (with SpeedStep™). The speeds I show the C600 shipped with are 600, 700, 750 and 850 MHz.

If you have any other questions about the system itself I will be more than happy to help. The first department I worked in when I started here at Dell was the Latitude support queue, so I have quite a bit of experience with the C600.


Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

Good Luck
Drake

Hello!
Thanks for your reply!

i bought this C610 from ebay 2004. it worked 1 1/2 year perfectly.
i worked on it and suddenly the notebook shut down and show me the 3 lock-leds. i don't know why. one week later i bought a new laptop and at the same day,i press at the c610 the power button and the notebook boot. it worked 1 week and then the same. it shut down and it doesn't start anymore. i test it all. new memory,other processor. without hdd,without battery without cd- drive. no way.

a week ago i found at ebay a motherboard incl. processor and grafics-card and modem. "works perfectly"<- the seller has write. i'f bought it and thats the mainboard where the caps-lock-led flashs 10 times.
I changed only the board and the memory.

I short tested both boards with both processors without the cooler and the processors has been warmly.
all tests without hdd and cd drive. sometimes with battery or ac-power or both.

at my old board [where the 3 leds are on for 3-4 seconds] i tested it without the processor and the caps-lock led flashs 10 times. i replaced the processor and then the 3 leds come on again. the same happened when i let the processor in and remove the memory.

And I don't have a system where i can test my components.

I have more hope for my old board as with the "new" Because of the description with the leds from larry.

The lock lights are like beep codes on the C600 series (and some other) Dell notebooks. The codes (0 is off, 1 is on) for the C600/610/640 are:

0-0-1 --> Processor Failure (failed, missing or not seated correctly)'
0-1-0 --> Motherboard Failure (something integrated failed, could be a number of things)
0-1-1 --> Memory Failure (one or both of the DIMMs or memory slots)

My personal preference on troubleshooting Latitudes is to remove all the "extra" parts (drives, memory, battery, network and pcmcia cards, and modem) and boot with just the motherboard/cpu/video. You should get the error about memory (as described above). Next, put the memory in. If it boots (should get a "no bootable device found" error since the HDD is not in) then start putting pieces back one at a time and starting the computer until you find out which one is causing the problem.

If it still errors with just the memory, then swap the sticks of RAM around to try all combinations to see if its one particular stick or slot.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

Hi,

I have a Dell Latitiude C600 - powers up and works ok.. but.. when the unit is running on battery and I power off.. the 3 lights by the switch flash and the hdd light (on the right hand side) flashes constantly. this eventually seems to drain the battery.

If I press the power button, the laptop powers up ok and the lights stop flashing.

If I leave the mains power lead in, the lights do not flash when the laptop is powered down.

I've changed the memory and the battery and tried the battery in the right hand side bay, but still the same problem. The fault even occurs when the unit is powered down and the memory is removed.

Bios is A23.

Do you have any ideas what could cause this please?

Regards
Mark

I have the same issue with my C600 (will not power on), except the three lights, HHD and power LED's, all stay lit for approx. 8-10 sec. and then nothing. is this a motherbord also?

Hello,
I seem to have a similar problem. I have a Latitude C600 that won't start most of the time.
When I push the power button all three lock lights flash. It seems to be a 6-1-2 sequence (flash 6 times, pause, once, pause, 2 times).

If I just keep trying over and over again eventually it will start up and run normally. Once I get it running, I can put it in standby mode and it will start right back up no problem.

I would like to fix the problem but I'm not sure what's wrong. Any suggestions based on the error code? It seems strange that it won't start most of the time, but will run fine once it does start.

Thanks for any advice!

Dominic

Look at this list. maybe that would help you.

Diagnostic Light Codes During POST

There are three LEDs on most Dell systems, the flashes and combinations can help fault find.

One LED On, Two LED flashing
ON FLASH FLASH - No memory modules detected

Two LED On One LED flashing
ON FLASH ON - Memory detected but you have a failed module.

One LED flashing Two LED On
FLASH ON ON - CPU or processor failure

Two LED flashing One LED On
FLASH FLASH On - Graphics card failure

Two LED flashing One LED On
FLASH ON FLASH - LCD Failure

Two LED flashing One LED Off
FLASH FLASH OFF - Keyboard failure

Two LED flashing One LED Off
FLASH OFF FLASH - USB failure

To troubleshoot a problem with your computer, read the sequence of the status lights in order from left to right Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock
If the computer malfunctions the individual lights display a status of either On , Off , or Flashing .


this forum was very helpfull for me...

http://www.user-guides.co.uk/Forums/...p?TOPIC_ID=273

hi,

Im not real sure how to read my computer,but same proble.Won't power up.

However it did come on 4 or 5 times,but i don't know what i did.Just fooled around with it with the power cord,taking the battery out,and other things.
Let it set for a day,and one click it came on.

I have 4 lights on mine..
The second light will blink 8 times,then go to the third light,and it will briefly blink green.

Thats about it.
Can anyone tell me what that code is?

Thanks,
Scotty

hello, i have a problem with my dell latitude c600 laptop. i dont no much about laptops so im not really sure what i did. I try to turn it on but it wont work the the only thing that happens is that all the lights flicker. What happened was it went into hibernation because of low battery and then it turned off. I then turned it back on and it told me to click F1. Im not sure what button i clicked but it was around F1 and then this other thing popped up and said all this stuff but i cant remember what it said. All i can remember is something about restarting something. I wasnt sure what to do so i turned the laptop off. When i tried to turn it back on it wouldnt turn back on.

If someone can help me that would be good. :)

You can try first to remove and re-seat your memory modules and hard drive, then see if it starts up with just the ac adapter (leave the battery out)

cheers ...