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7540
April 16th, 2016 13:00
Dell Inspiron 17 - won't boot - loud clicks with a 2 sec interval
My Dell Inspiron 17 Laptop will not boot up. When I press the power-on button the power LED and disk LED lights up - then the disk LED goes out and then there is a loud continuous click with a 2 sec interval. I then press and hold the power button down for 5 to 10 seconds until the power goes off - and I try again - sometimes 8 to 10 times before it boots. When it finally boots everything works great (all my Apps, and my email, and my Internet access - everything). I ran the Dell hardware diagnostic tests and they all passed successfully (ePSA Diagnostics & Support Assist Tests etc.).
I thought my disk drive might be going bad, so I purchased a new replacement WDC WD5000LPVX-75V0TT0 from Western Digital and then I cloned it. After the cloning completed - I tried booting the Laptop - but still have the same trouble (won't boot -loud clicks with a 2 sec interval). Once it comes up - everything works great.
Does anyone know what will fix this problem?
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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April 17th, 2016 15:00
HI Fayedc,
Can you boot to the BIOS (F2)? If the system passed all diagnostics, I'm not sure why you purchased another hard drive.
By the way, do you have Windows 7?
FayeDC
6 Posts
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April 24th, 2016 08:00
When I press the power-on button I hear the internal fan start up and it has a nice smooth sound like a new fan - and there doesn't appear to be any dust on or around the fan or anywhere else at all.
The clicking noise is coming from the bottom right corner of the Laptop - where the HDD is located.
I Thank You - and Thank All the others in the Dell Community who assisted me in troubleshooting this laptop trouble. I received confirmation from another Dell Support Tech - and they agreed with The Dell Community Post by suplementos in their analysis - my laptop motherboard may be defective. I'm in the process of getting it repaired. Thanks again.
FayeDC
6 Posts
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April 18th, 2016 07:00
Yes - I am able to boot to the BIOS (F2) and the laptop passes all diagnostics - but it still takes me several minutes before I get the machine to boot-up so I can login to the operating system.
I upgraded from Windows 8 to Windows 10 about 6 months ago and everything has been working great - no issues at all. Then about a month ago the Loud Clicking noise problem started.
((( My laptop problem > I start by pressing the power-on button - I can hear the fan start - the power and disk LEDs light up - but a second or two later the disk LED goes out and that's when the Loud disk clicking noise begins. I then have to press and hold down the power button. I can hear the fan stop and the disk heads park - then all the LEDs go out. Then I have to start this process all over again [sometimes more than 8 to 10 times] until the laptop finally comes up and allows me to login.)))
mklassen
8 Posts
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April 23rd, 2016 09:00
Could it be that the internal fan is the source of the clicking noise?
If it's accumulated a bunch of dust, it may be out-of-balance and "wobbling".
During the POST (Power On Self Test), your computer is trying to run the fan at full-speed for a few seconds, to "test" that the fan is working. If it is not responding quickly enough, the POST may "retry" (every 2 seconds, over and over) to spin-up the fan.
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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April 24th, 2016 16:00
Hi FayeDC,
Ok, good to hear. Let us know if the repair worked!