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January 20th, 2025 12:34
Strange startup sequence
The problem happens when I first turn on the power strip (or plug in the CPU). The fan starts to run and the light on the power button illuminates. After a couple of seconds the disk light goes on briefly and the unit shuts off. After the unit shuts off, I can push the power button and the unit boots up. Is this normal? I have owned a number of Dell computers and have never seen this before.
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RoHe
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45.2K Posts
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January 20th, 2025 20:28
Always include exact PC model and your version of Windows.
What you're seeing is perfectly normal!
When you turn the power strip off, the PC assumes there's been a power failure. When you turn the strip back on, PC senses that, and powers on briefly to check how the AC Recovery option is set in BIOS setup.
If AC Recovery is set to "off", PC shuts off again. Other AC Recovery options may include always booting up when recovering from power failure, Or "last state", meaning if it was off before the AC failure, it shuts off without booting , or if it was on before the failure, it boots to desktop.
I have BIOS on my PC set to always boot when recovering. I shut down normally in Windows and turn the power strip off. So when I turn the strip on again, PC boots, monitor, speakers etc that are plugged into same strip all come on with just by pressing that one button.
Backcaster
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January 21st, 2025 00:45
@RoHe Thank You. That is the most cogent answer I have gotten about this issue. It took a month for tech support to resolve the issue and involved multiple trips down several decision trees before I got to someone who could explain why my new Dell booted twice when powered on.
Backcaster
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January 21st, 2025 00:49
Thought I had included the model. It is a new Inspiron 3030 running Windows 11. I am an ancient techie who was happy to get a 10 MB hard drive back in the day. Used to flying to clients with my program and compiler on two floppies.
Thanks Again
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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January 21st, 2025 01:25
You're welcome.
That AC Recovery BIOS setting has been available on Dell PCs since at least 2004 because my Dimension 8400 did the exact same thing when the power strip was turned on and my 2019 XPS 8930 does it too.
FWIW, I still have a box -or two- of unused 64K 5.25" floppies in the closet...