Is my motherboard toast?

Issue – Flashing Amber Light

Manual – “If the power light is blinking amber – There may be a problem with the system board.” 

Actions Performed

-          Open case and perform visual inspection.  No obvious concerns with bulging capacitors, loose connection pin mounts, metal shorts connecting to the frame, or loose debris.

-          Started removing components, followed by boot attempt, to determine if any hardware was causing the issue.  Kept I/O board to verify light continued to flash amber with each boot test.

-          Cycled RAM to test with multiple sticks in the ‘first’ slot.

-          Able to bring up, modify, and navigate through bios systems.

-          Verified motherboard provides appropriate ‘beep’ notifications with missing RAM / Video Card.

-          Removed CMOS battery.  Tested with multi-meter and reinstalled after a few hours.

-          Replaced PSU with a bigger, tested, PSU.  Orange amber blinking amber light remained.

-          Removed MB from case and ‘bread-boarded”.  Removed all components processor and PSU. 

-          Used screw driver to start PCU for testing.  Very low success rate of making it through POST.

-          Removed processor.  Visually inspected for anything abnormal.

CPU Specs

-          Dell XPS 9100

-          Intel Core i7 CPU 960 @ 3.2 GHz

-          5DN3X A00 Motherboard

Thank you for reading!  Any suggestions are appreciated!