What does yellow light on Motherboard mean? [Definitive Guide]

You have been using the perfect build without any problems for a month or so, but now your system is having several problems. At the same time, you are also noticing a yellow light on the motherboard. You probably want to know, what does a yellow light on the motherboard mean? In this article, we’ll help you with a detailed discussion and how we can fix that.

The yellow light on the motherboard indicates a DRAM error. However, it does not always mean the same thing for different motherboards. I suggest you read the motherboard manual that you can find on the website if you lost yours.

However, you don’t have to lose sleep over it. While I only faced this error once last year, I managed to find the cause and fix it fairly easily. Stay to the end of this article for more information.

So, without wasting any more time, let’s jump right in. Just don’t forget to skip anything because each section is very important.

What do the lights on the motherboard mean?

Each of the lights on the motherboard has a specific meaning that indicates an error. The LED flashes in different colors to convey a unique meaning. However, the meaning is not always the same between different motherboards, so read the manual.

The position of this LED light will also differ from computer to computer, but most of the time, you can find it near the power button.

The meaning of the colors can best be understood by consulting the user manual that came with your computer.

As I mentioned earlier, if you see a yellow light, it means there is probably a problem with the RAM. Similarly, other lights will indicate other hardware problems.

However, the meaning of these lights is not consistent, so you should refer back to the manual. For example, if you see a persistent orange light on many motherboards, it would mean that the power supply is providing power correctly.

However, on some motherboards, a steady orange light would indicate that there is some problem with the motherboard. Also, some motherboards blink with an orange light indicating that their power supply is defective.

Another point I forgot to mention earlier is that the yellow light on your motherboard can also indicate different things. I personally faced this yellow light problem after installing new RAM.

This is perfectly normal, of course, since I said earlier that the yellow light indicates a RAM problem. However, my PC could not boot because of this either and changing the RAM several times did not help at all.

I only managed to fix it when I took the CPU out of the socket and then put it back in.

Another very common light on the motherboard is the red light and when this happens, your motherboard indicates that an internal hardware component has not connected properly.

If you don’t see any problems with the connection, then the component is simply not working. The red light may also indicate that you have a dead CMOS battery or that there are some boot errors that need to be checked on the main hard drive.

So, you know what all these different lights are trying to say. But why do they only blink sometimes and not all the time?

Well, when the motherboard boots up, it has a very important task and that is to initialize the CPU, memory, VGA, and other connected components. Usually, you will get a separate light for each of these, and each of them will light up when they are initialized.

These lights should turn off after initialization is complete, but if they don’t, it means there was a problem during initialization that causes the LED lights to keep flashing.

What should you do if your computer does not turn on?

If your computer does not turn on, you should verify that everything was installed correctly. You should also look for any incompatible hardware that may be causing boot problems. Read your motherboard manual to understand the flashing lights.

One of the first things you should try right away is to try to supply more power. You should do this particularly if nothing on your computer is working, including the fans, lights, and display.

There may be other problems with a power supply, so you can also try using a different power supply and see what the results are. As stupid as it sounds, the next step would be to verify that your monitor is plugged-in correctly.

It is very common for cables to come loose over time and when that happens, most of us don’t even notice it. You should look for damage and connection instability in the cable.

If you have a motherboard that comes with a built-in mini speaker, you may hear a beep from your motherboard when you press the power button. You should hear a single beep if everything is OK, but when you hear several beeps, it means something is wrong.

You can find out what the beeps mean by reading your motherboard manual. If you have a speaker and you still don’t hear any beeps, then your motherboard could be defective, which could be the reason for the boot problem.

You can also try reattaching all the hardware components that have been proven to work several times. I know it is time-consuming, but just like with the cables, it is very likely that one of the components has come loose.

Finally, if your computer boots but cannot get past the BIOS settings, you should try scanning the BIOS settings for incorrect settings. If that seems a bit complicated to you, you can reset all BIOS settings to their defaults and see if that fixes anything.

Don’t forget to check out some of the best 4800 MHz RAM for a faster gaming experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Thoughts

Seeing the motherboard flash different lights can be alarming at times, but the truth is that those lights can be very useful if you use them correctly. You can identify specific hardware problems fairly quickly if you know how to understand what those lights mean.

As I mentioned earlier, you need to find the manual for your motherboard in order to do that. I hope you found this article helpful and if you have any other technical questions in mind, visit our home page to find the answer.