I'm trying to repair a Precision 7550 that is out of warranty and am at a loss for next steps.
The original user of the laptop said that they turned the laptop on, it displayed the Dell logo, emitted 5 or 6 very loud beeps, then displayed a QR code on the screen. They think the QR code said something about disk one. Unfortunately they did not take a picture of the QR code, and I have not been able to make it to that screen.
It appears to be stuck in an endless loop of restarting, with each restart loop shorter than the preceding one. When I received the laptop, I could hit the F12 key and make it to the bios very briefly before it restarted. Now it restarts within seconds of displaying the logo.
What I've tried so far
- Unplugging AC adapter and disconnecting battery, holding power button for 30/60/90 seconds.
- Removing hard drives and RAM. This did result in a no RAM LED error code (2,3).
- Tried restarting with a single stick of RAM and no hard drives, no difference.
- Removed CMOS battery, checked voltage with multimeter - 3.1volts.
- After the CMOS removal, the laptop booted up and displayed a black screen. The LED light stayed continuously lit. Subsequent restarts put it back to the typical loop.
- Booting from a USB flash drive - unable to access BIOS.
- Ran the M-BIST test, it only tests the display.
Can the BIOS be flashed if you're unable to access the One Time Boot Menu?
Edit: after failing to get the manual BIOS recovery initiated, the original QR code popped up! The error code was 2000-0151, which indicates a hard drive error. I removed that SSD, but am still stuck in the boot loop. Every few loops it will make it beyond the Dell logo to the Support Assist window. It's on that screen for a second before it restarts again.
