Yellow blinking light on power button

SOURCE: Yellow blinking power button

A customer of mine has several of these that have the same problem. I found a comment on a Dell forum indicating that one of the capacitors on the mainboard will be either swollen or leaking. Replace the capacitor and it should be OK. I do not have the proper equipment for soldering on a mainboard so I have not done this. However, I did a google search on "Dell SX280 mainboard purchase" and I found a guy on ebay selling the repaired boards for $100.

SOURCE: power light blinking yellow after sitting a while

Unplug computer, disconnect all usb/monitor/internet, open it, hold power button until green led on the inside on the motherboard turns off, pop out the BIOS battery (looks like a big watch battery and use a small flathead screwdriver to depress the spring lock on one side), plug in computer, hold power button for about 20 seconds (must reset BIOS or something), let up on power button, wait 10 seconds and push power button. The computer should turn on. Wait for it until activity seems stable (1 min. or so). Push powerbutton to shut off.

If this has worked you have proven that it's not the power supply (it turned on).

Go buy a new battery (CR2032 3 volt). Unplug computer, open it, hold power button until green led on the inside on the motherboard turns off, pop in new battery, plug in (you should notice the power button blinking amber again), hold power button until it stops blinking (about 20 sec....again must reset BIOS or something), wait 10 sec., push power button. the computer should turn on. Wait for it until activity seems stabe (1 min. or so). Push powerbutton to shut off.

Now, close case, plug in all usb/monitor/internet/etc. Power up computer. You'll get an internal floppy drive error. Push F2 (maybe F1) to get into the BIOS settings and go to "drives" and turn off the internal floppy. Save and exit. The computer should boot properly now.

This seems to be a big problem with the e510, my theory is that this one small battery is the root of most of these failures (as these computers usually fail after 1-2 years), not the power supply or the motherboard (heck, when you replace the motherboard it comes with a new one of these batteries...a several hundred dollar piece of hardware, with a $5 battery that will actually fix it).

SOURCE: dell dimension 4700 blinking yellow light

You clearly have an SMPS(power supply issue). Not 3 days ago I worked on my dad's PC that had the same problem. I found that the board had some leaky caps, and the circuit board inside it partially burnt. I could get it working by replacing the caps, but dont know how long it will last(I'll be getting a new PC soon anyway). Its advicable you replace the power supply. Should cost you around 30-50$ at MOST!

SOURCE: Dell Dimension 3000 yellow light blinks, PC will not start

could be a bad driver..try booting into safe mode F8

SOURCE: My dell xps wont start properly, yellow blinking light

I have an HP that does close to the same thing. Mine goes into a 'Perm-Sleep' mode that I can't seem to pull it out of. I have to remove the battery, then unplug the power adapter, not in that order. Leaving it in this condition for about a minute so that all the power stored in the RAM goes away. This is the same as holding the power button down for 10 to 15 seconds until it completly turns off, sometimes referred to as a 'Cold Boot.'

Once I have powered it down I have to go into the control panel and select the power settings and make sure that hibernate is not an option. If you close the lid on the laptop and the systems goes into a sleep state, it may be configured to go to hibernate after, say an hour or when the battery gets close to being drained. My computer does not like to come out of hibernate and I have to Cold Boot it, so I just don't let it go into a hibernation in the first place anymore.