Old Dell Precision 380 Workstation -- SOLVED
I know this is a long shot, but you RV buddies have help me out in the pass. I have an very old Dell Precision 380 Workstation -- must be 10 years old. I have not used it for about a year. It worked ...
Forum Discussion
TenOC wrote:theoldwizard1 wrote:
I haven't touched a Dell in over 10 years, but IIRC, don't the power supplies have blink/beep codes ?
Before you start swapping power supplies, you can buy a power supply tester on eBay for less than $10. Assuming Dell used the standard power supply connector.
No lights on the front panel -- all dead. This includes blink codes.
I have worked with Precision 380s, the green light on the system board would indicate that the board is getting SOME power but not ALL outputs from the power supply.
Pretty much ALL of the Dell Precision series PCs back in that time era suffered from capacitor failures due to under specd parts and cheaper counterfeit parts that flooded the market.
Inspect the system board, if you find ANY caps which are bulged you may as well scrap the PC. Recaping can be done (I have done that) but unless you love removing and replacing caps it is not worth the time and money for that slow of a processor..
If you do not see any swelled caps then the problem most likely is the power supply..
I have subbed in generic PC power supplies on many Dells, it can be done but sometimes you will end up needing to modify the case a bit to get it to fit..
Finding a NOS (New Old Stock) direct fit power supply or system board will most likely be impossible now days and buying USED parts amounts to taking a gamble that may or may not work and if it does who knows for how long.
Resurrecting that old of a PC is a labor of love and most likely will not be able to find drivers for all of the hardware for newer OS than Vista or 7 IF you are lucky.
I have scrapped newer better PCs than a 380..
You can easily get new much faster desktop PCs for not much more than $200
HERE is a dual core Celeron at 1.6 ghz with 4 gig ram, 500 gb HD WITH Win10 for $225!
If you look around, you can often find bare bones PCs with faster processors for less than $200 (Bare bones means no OS included so you can load whatever you like if you have a license for it).
