Hi , Im new here.
I just recently bought a Dell dimension xps d266 (pII) at what i thought was a bargain.

So I thought.

Let me give you the facts:

It came with no ram and no hard drive. Otherwise everything is there.

I installed ram and hard drive and tried to boot the thing up.

The power comes on. The fans on the powersupply and videocard start spinning.
And i can even hear the hard drive kicking in.

The problem is that the monitor stays black and the leds on my keyboard
keep flashing on and off. And there are no beep codes to guide me in any
particular direction.

The hard drive and the ram i installed are good . I know because they are from
a working pc.

So those are the facts.......................

Please,
might anyone know what it is?

Oh and at the end of this message it asks me to post a poll......number of poll options...... what is this
i left it at 4.....
thanks.....

Hi. first off I have to say im sorry you paid for that but ...thats not much to go on .try clearing CMOS(Bios)first.and if that doesnt work throw it as far away as possible before it sucks the life out of you and $$$ from your wallet. And welcome to pimp rig.

i had that happen to my dad's dell. what worked for me was to take out all of the components and clean off the dust.

*shudders* I dont even touch new dells now Unless they're laptops.
Since the system is a Pentium II, then know that it will probably be pretty slow. My Dell PIII 866Mhz is now too slow for me hehe, and that system is 6 years old :S
Anyways, all i can say is get rid of it. If you truly want to salvage it....

1) Is the monitor yours? If it's not it may be dead.
2) Do you know the specs of the system at all?
3) Older DELL motherboards have 4 leds on the back to show what status the system is in. Does your system have that? If so, what are the lighting configurations? I may have my old DELL booklet and can look up the meanings of the led positions.
4) Dun know what to say about the keyboard. Seems as if the power going to the keyboard is funky. Could be a motherboard problem, or it could be a keyboard problem. Then again, the keyboard may be yours. If so scratch the keyboard problem lol.

Other than that, clear the bios. Dont know how to do that on your motherboard though. Sry m8.

First off, welcome to PR

Second off, I found a Dell XPS R350 on the side of the road w/10gb HDD, FREE. I can't believe you actually paid for that. I hope it was like 5 bucks at a garage sale.

Board is toast buddy. But the cases are standard ATX and if you're careful you can convert them to standard ATX like I have mine. Do a search in the Dell forums for it, or Google it. It is possible with a little soldering to the front I/O panel.

my rather limited guess is bad motherboard.

Sorry you've had to wait since May for me to post this. I have one of these machines too and it's still in use as a file server, email server, and secondary machine when I am connected to work via VPN with my main machine. Mine has 192MB RAM, 80GB and 160GB hard drives, and not much else. It used to be my firewall also until I went WiFi.

Anyway, your problem is probably memory. This machine requires a special type of memory. You may have installed PC100 SDRAM or even PC133, neither of which will work (without a BIOS update). I had to purchase PC66 SDRAM, specifically made for this Dell model (I hate that whole concept). I didn't really overpay for the memory, though I can't recall where I bought it. I suggest looking for memory specifically for this model.

Don't feel sorry for people using this machine. It performs admirably as a server running Windows 2000. It's not too usable interactively (I wouldn't want to on a daily basis), but for the purpose mine serves it's just fine. No performance issues at all, and it's about the most stable machine I own. I got mine from my wife's employer, so I paid nothing for it except to add memory (I think it was about $70) and hard drives. Adding a large hard drive (> 130GB) is an interesting project. I had to use my old Promise UltraATA 100 controller card because Dell's BIOS simply would not recognize the 160GB drive. Then I had to download a driver from Microsoft that allows Windows 2000 to use large hard drives. It actually went very smoothly, but took a while to accomplish.

Hope this helps. Don't trash the machine yet. It's still useful if you have a particular need.

Good luck!
Bruce

Quote: Originally Posted by almostageek Hi , Im new here. I just recently bought a Dell dimension xps d266 (pII) at what i thought was a bargain. So I thought. Let me give you the facts: It came with no ram and no hard drive. Otherwise everything is there. I installed ram and hard drive and tried to boot the thing up. The power comes on. The fans on the powersupply and videocard start spinning. And i can even hear the hard drive kicking in. The problem is that the monitor stays black and the leds on my keyboard keep flashing on and off. And there are no beep codes to guide me in any particular direction. The hard drive and the ram i installed are good . I know because they are from a working pc. So those are the facts....................... Please, might anyone know what it is? Oh and at the end of this message it asks me to post a poll......number of poll options...... what is this i left it at 4..... thanks.....

Hey bascherz,

Welcome to PimpRig!


The welcome wagon's a coming!.....


EDIT: nice info too by the way