Computer won't start up

[Assassin]

And I mean dead to the world. The power's fine. The motherboard's light is on, so some power must be going to the bugger. I've checked all of the connections three times at least. The funny thing is that my sister used it this afternoon to check her e-mail (it was working fine then), and now, without a warning, it won't respond. Pushing the power button gets me nowhere. No sounds, no acknowledgement.

I'm running a Dell Dimension 4600, with Windows XP Home Edition. Any idea of what to do?

[Larry_OHF]

Any idea of what to do?

That depends...has your sister already been executed?

If so, ignore my first idea.

Second idea...if the motherboard is showing a light...that does not necessarily mean that it is alive. I mean...if it was a dead HDD...would you not at least get a screen of some sort from the m-board? It could be the HDD, but I'd first assume something is wrong on the main board. At this point, however...I am useless for advice, but maybe my ideas help slightly.

[Azeral]

I would think that maybe your graphics card / on board graphics controller might have thrown the towel in.

[Vaskez]

Yeah might also be RAM, though I'm talking out of thin air as this has never happened to me. It sounds like one of the major components has gone. ALthough you should still get a BIOS screen without a working hard disk, so it could be your graphics card, but maybe your RAM got fried. I'd try borrowing some RAM and a graphics card from someone, see if it boots with those

[Bungleau]

Start at the beginning. When you press the power button, does the PSU (power supply) do anything? Any whirring, any fans?

If that works, then open it up and see if the fan on the CPU starts spinning.

If that works, then see if there's any signal going to the monitor (the lights in the front should change color, most likely).

If that works, do you get the initial BIOS boot screen (the old "hit delete to enter setup" or other splash screen).

Okay. If the PSU failed, then try it in a different outlet on a different circuit. There may be just a bad plug, or it could be a bad PSU. Or a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) could have tripped.

If the fan on the CPU (and elsewhere) isn't spinning, check for loose connections, and make sure it spins to begin with.

If there's no signal to the monitor, then try another monitor, or that monitor on another computer. Or another graphics card.

If there's no initial BIOS display, then I'm not sure what to check. You could have anything from a bad motherboard onward. It'd probably be worth taking it to a shop to see what they can do for it.

[Dace De'Briago]

Absolute rubbish.

Open the case.

Remove the power switch front panel connector.

Attack it with a screwdriver for the win.

[Larry_OHF]

I had a friend once do a stupid thing and load his HDD down with more Gigs of filled space than he could afford, and so when the computer was rebooted...Windows had no space to write to...so nothing happened.

[Hivetyrant]

Yeah, as Dace said, if you can, actually connect the two pins on the motherboard that the power switch connects two by yourself (screwdriver should do it) If that doesnt work, then it is your motherboard, a computer WILL always start, even if there is no CPU present (I have done this many times) so I doubt it is a faulty video card or lack of working RAM.

Tell us how it goes.

[Callum]

Try a system restore!

Sorry, sorry... occasionally I think I'm funny [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[andrewas]

You can test the PSU itself by shorting the green wire to a black wire. If it dosent spin up, either your shorting the wrong wires, have it turned off at the socket (or the switch on the back), or its dead.

Dont skimp on a replacement PSU. You get what you pay for. Oh, and Dell used to use non-standard PSUs, check that the wiring arrangement is the same before you plug a replaement in, elsewise it will blow up your motherboard. Shouldnt be a problem on a more recent machine though.