Got a cheap one of these off eBay as untested, and it won’t start. VARTA battery leaked a tiny bit but didn’t cause much damage from the looks beyond the battery connector. Anyone know why mine won’t start? Video attached showing behavior.
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Dell Latitude C400 no post/shuts off
- Thread starter 3lectr1c
- Start date
I left it plugged in overnight, tried powering it on a bunch of times, and it slowly came back to life. No idea why this works but it has on multiple computers for me in the past.
It still won’t post 100% of the time but it seems to be getting better.
It tried to boot into XP but locks up. It will boot into safe mode fine though.
I’m really hoping it ends up being a corrupted install though and not a hardware failure. I had a Latitude C610 that did a similar thing years ago and it was a bad motherboard. Windows 9x would work on it but NT based versions wouldn’t.
Gonna be an adventure getting an OS reinstalled as I don’t have the external optical drive.
Unfortunately, the connector on this one is slightly different from the Latitude CS connector
Parts people has the cable in stock though, so maybe I’ll get one if I can get this thing to work right.
It still won’t post 100% of the time but it seems to be getting better.
It tried to boot into XP but locks up. It will boot into safe mode fine though.
I’m really hoping it ends up being a corrupted install though and not a hardware failure. I had a Latitude C610 that did a similar thing years ago and it was a bad motherboard. Windows 9x would work on it but NT based versions wouldn’t.
Gonna be an adventure getting an OS reinstalled as I don’t have the external optical drive.
Unfortunately, the connector on this one is slightly different from the Latitude CS connector
Parts people has the cable in stock though, so maybe I’ll get one if I can get this thing to work right.
Alright, so the hard drive had a virus on it so that could be an explanation for the freezing. Drive is healthy though, and it did boot up all the way when I stuck my Latitude C610 (working one this time)’s SSD into it, so at the very least I know that I can clean install XP on the C400’s drive using my C610, them put the drive in the C400 and install drivers.
I’m currently fully scanning the drive on my modern computing to remove any other malware though…
I’m currently fully scanning the drive on my modern computing to remove any other malware though…
twolazy
Veteran Member
These C400's require a battery that at least shows some sort of error on the built in LED display. They are of the era with the weird lockout chip so you cannot rebuild them easily. So doesn't surprise me you had to charge it a few for it to work. They are great workhorses, I owned 3 over the years , and never had any issues other then the external drive docks. I do suggest a USB 2 PCMCIA card though, 1 USB 1.1 port gets old fast.
The main battery has to hold some sort of charge? My battery does display that error blink on the 5 light display, so I guess that should count. So it won’t start at all without one?
Still can’t get mine to work right though. It just locks up at some point while loading windows with no explanation.
- boots all the way and runs in safe mode
- boots in normal mode using my C610’s SSD (msata to use), which has an OS installed on the C610
- locked up either on the logo screen or on the login screen/just before it on the original install in normal mode
- locks up early on the logo screen with the original hard drive after I did a clean install on the C610. That install does again boot in safe mode though
I ran memtest86 on the RAM to rule that out and it’s fine. Had to test in my C610 as I can’t boot memtest off CD on the C400, but that shouldn’t make a difference I’d think.
Should I just try to get the media cable so I can do an install directly on it? I just don’t get why it keeps locking up like this.
Still can’t get mine to work right though. It just locks up at some point while loading windows with no explanation.
- boots all the way and runs in safe mode
- boots in normal mode using my C610’s SSD (msata to use), which has an OS installed on the C610
- locked up either on the logo screen or on the login screen/just before it on the original install in normal mode
- locks up early on the logo screen with the original hard drive after I did a clean install on the C610. That install does again boot in safe mode though
I ran memtest86 on the RAM to rule that out and it’s fine. Had to test in my C610 as I can’t boot memtest off CD on the C400, but that shouldn’t make a difference I’d think.
Should I just try to get the media cable so I can do an install directly on it? I just don’t get why it keeps locking up like this.
twolazy
Veteran Member
Ive booted cd's off the C400... make sure the drive is attached before you turn on the machine. Never tried booting memtest, but have booted multiple os's off CD before, the functionality is there. Keep in mind its very early version of El Torito. I have also swapped the cdrom to a HD-DVD drive with no issues. Perhaps thats why mine boots off CD? You can reuse most any slim IDE CDROM/CDRW/DVDRW/HD DVD on it, I can check tomorrow for you what drive I have been using. Upside burns CD's a treat if you got the external CDROM bay, and swap the drive. I think I still have a stock cdrom to test as well. Have a bunch for it, including the dock and the floppy drive.
What’s El Torito?
Don’t have the right cable at the moment so I can’t hook up any modules at all. It’s especially annoying as the CS/CSx cable is nearly the same but just doesn’t fit. Good old dell.
Normally I’d chock up the boot issues to booting an install from a different laptop on this one, but the C610’s install did boot once all the way, and the original install that was on there did the same thing.
They all boot in safe mode 100% of the time.
The post issues haven’t gone away though either. It also behaves the same with or without the battery. It did start without the battery too.
I honestly just think that I got unlucky and the motherboard is fried in some way.
Sometimes it will also blink the middle caps lock LED as an error code. I’ve looked and looked and looked for the key chart on the C Series diagnostic LEDs but I can’t find it anywhere. I swear I could just a couple of years ago. My guess would be RAM fault, but the RAM tested good on the C610.
Next thing to try will be to see if 98 boots. On my C610 board that did a similar thing, 9x still ran just fine. Never figured out the core fault on that one either, but clearly something on the board had died that was minor but caused NT to lock up.
Don’t have the right cable at the moment so I can’t hook up any modules at all. It’s especially annoying as the CS/CSx cable is nearly the same but just doesn’t fit. Good old dell.
Normally I’d chock up the boot issues to booting an install from a different laptop on this one, but the C610’s install did boot once all the way, and the original install that was on there did the same thing.
They all boot in safe mode 100% of the time.
The post issues haven’t gone away though either. It also behaves the same with or without the battery. It did start without the battery too.
I honestly just think that I got unlucky and the motherboard is fried in some way.
Sometimes it will also blink the middle caps lock LED as an error code. I’ve looked and looked and looked for the key chart on the C Series diagnostic LEDs but I can’t find it anywhere. I swear I could just a couple of years ago. My guess would be RAM fault, but the RAM tested good on the C610.
Next thing to try will be to see if 98 boots. On my C610 board that did a similar thing, 9x still ran just fine. Never figured out the core fault on that one either, but clearly something on the board had died that was minor but caused NT to lock up.
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twolazy
Veteran Member
El Torito is the book spec that allowed booting from cd's... I think you need to go through your cd's and or USB sticks you are using, something is infecting these machines... Now these Dell's with this vintage are very hard on the ram. Since there is very little cooling, and it being just about behind the cpu, the ram just bakes itself to death. I did have to swap out ram on the one I use currently. Let me know if you need ram, I have a ton extra I can test beforehand for ya.
twolazy
Veteran Member
On a side note, this winter I wanted to attempt a new soundcard (ESS based) for the C400. Its the only issue it has with DOS gaming. Its in the lower right corner and its own card. It uses a 2mm dot pitch pin header thats just PCI. Shouldn't be too hard, hopefully. If not there is an Internal mini PCI slot, that could be used. I do have the C600 dock, and it does indeed work on the C400 with PCI cards, but its far from an Ideal solution. I feel its the perfert size for DOS gaming.
twolazy
Veteran Member
XGA on the C400s
For some reason, it boots all the way into XP now. Once again though, I had to leave it on power for a while before it would do anything other than the no start issue where the three lock LEDs go solid for a few seconds, then shutoff.
I don’t expect this to last, but at least it boots up now.
I don’t expect this to last, but at least it boots up now.
twolazy
Veteran Member
Have you checked if the RTC battery leaked? I changed mine a few years ago and was just starting to get a little crusty inside...
First thing I did when I got it pretty much was to pull that battery out. It did leak into the connector, but no damage was visible on the board. Didn't get a good look at the bottom of the board, but even the tiny ceramic caps right behind the battery connector were spotless and shiny. Also gave the area a clean with alcohol.
twolazy
Veteran Member
Thats good to know, never tried it. 
I have a few extra batteries that I will eventually rebuild, but finding the right cells is a challenge. They are SONY branded and a really strange flat package, 3.7V ea. Now there was a 2nd battery available, which was thicker, and used 18650 cells, but was really rare. I believe it was called the Extended battery option. Ones in the stock battery are almost like 3 AAA in series. I'll try to dig it out soon, no clue where it is, but I know I have it lol. Gave up, as only decent replacement cells I could find were almost 9 dollars each, and need think it was 6 of those cells. They are really close to the original cells inside PSP batteries. Most aftermarket PSP batteries are just rechargable AAA's.
If you are interested down the line for other dock options, or a docking station etc, let me know. I have so many usb floppy drives at this point, Doubt ill use the 1.44 floppy module, but am keeping the ZIp drive module.
I have a few extra batteries that I will eventually rebuild, but finding the right cells is a challenge. They are SONY branded and a really strange flat package, 3.7V ea. Now there was a 2nd battery available, which was thicker, and used 18650 cells, but was really rare. I believe it was called the Extended battery option. Ones in the stock battery are almost like 3 AAA in series. I'll try to dig it out soon, no clue where it is, but I know I have it lol. Gave up, as only decent replacement cells I could find were almost 9 dollars each, and need think it was 6 of those cells. They are really close to the original cells inside PSP batteries. Most aftermarket PSP batteries are just rechargable AAA's.If you are interested down the line for other dock options, or a docking station etc, let me know. I have so many usb floppy drives at this point, Doubt ill use the 1.44 floppy module, but am keeping the ZIp drive module.
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