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Dell Optiplex GXa gets stuck at BIOS screen

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First post, by charli0460

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So I recently bought this Optiplex on eBay. Didn't get the chance to test it until one month after purchase. In the meantime eBay terminated the sellers account. The computer gets stuck at the BIOS screen 😒 . It does not react to keyboard input (Keyboard lights flash on turn on and disconnecting the keyboard gets the usual missing error message). It just sits on the BIOS screen with a flashing cursor. I disconnected any device that could interfere with the motherboard and removed the BIOS battery. But it still won't do anything.

Have any suggestions to this problem?

Reply 1 of 2, by lowlytech

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Replace the battery with a fresh one. Does the keyboard respond on power on to show the numlock lights flash? Unlikely but maybe bad RAM or reseat it, or could be unstable power supply.

Reply 2 of 2, by charli0460

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lowlytech wrote:

Replace the battery with a fresh one. Does the keyboard respond on power on to show the numlock lights flash? Unlikely but maybe bad RAM or reseat it, or could be unstable power supply.

The Keyboard lights quickly flash on power on. I tried reseating the RAM that came with the computer in different configurations, still the same issue. I think it might be the power supply or something else on the mainboard. It is giving me different messages on startup. When I press the keys down, it sometimes gives me an error about stuck keys, other times it will display the message shown on the picture and other times it will simple display no message. I have no way to test this machine with a different power supply. It uses some kind of proprietary Dell standard, with an ATX and what looks like one AT connector. I only have normal ATX power supplies available.

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