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View Full Version : So my computer won't turn on.....


forceten
12-12-2006, 01:16 PM
So one of my office computers started acting funny last week. Not sure it has anything to do with an upgrade to IE 7 or not.

One of the girls in the office said the computer went on standby/hibernate and wouldn't come out of it. So over the phone I told em to just power down and restart. Worked fine. Next day I was in the office and was on the computer taking the hibernate off. As I was checking some other stuff the screen blanked out and tons of squiggly lines were on the screen. Then after a few secs a black screen, computer was still on. I went and restarted the computer and came up fine. Later that day same thing happened.

Checked the monitor and it was fine so I started thinking video card going bad or the ram on the vid card. Went and bought another card but didn't put it in yet (sitting on the side). Same thing happened today on this computer but just as I was about to try the vid card I noticed the computer would no longer come back up after powering down.

I can hit the power button and the light pops on but the boot sequence doesn't start. I tried over and over and just click, the two cd drives light up but no boot sequence and nothing on the screen. After letting it sit for 10 mins tried again and came right up. Its running now and I am typing this on it now but I have doubts of it being a bad video card now (unless a bad card would stop a bootup cycle?).

My thoughts where a bad motherboard or chip, maybe overheating. I opened up the case and blew out dust and such. Past that what do you guys think?

Put in the vid card? Bad motherboard and time for a new computer? Somebody else mentioned maybe the power supply is on the fritz and the vid card or drives drop power and thats why I get the messed up screen and then black screen.

PhilEnfield
12-12-2006, 02:22 PM
I am thinking PSU, especially as it wouldn't come out of Safe Mode.

If you have a spare, try swapping it.

forceten
12-12-2006, 03:36 PM
Don't have a spare since dell are *******s and theirs are special most times. Can't just pick up one that fits inside.

I could just hook a power supply up on the side I guess and try it out.

Thanks for the advice phil. I knew I wanted to try one of the ideas I had, just wasn't sure which to try first.

forceten
12-13-2006, 09:40 PM
Power supply came in and that didn't do the trick. Computer got so bad the boot cycle would no longer start up at all. So I still was leaning toward the video card as being the problem but I started pulling one thing out at a time off the motherboard to see if I could get the boot cycle to start up and find what was causing it (if it wasn't the Mb itself). Sure enough when i pulled the video card the computer boot cycle started. Grabbed another video card and computer books up ok so far so I think was a shot video card. Must have been sucking all the power off the motherboard or something.
Much nicer to spend $200 then have to get a new MB! - Well plus the $30 for the new power supply.

PhilEnfield
12-14-2006, 03:52 AM
Glad you got it sorted ok :)