Greetings fellow PCGuideers, typing to you from the aging confines of my Dell Xp. Ah, you're thinking, that haunted Compaq has conjured another polterguess. . .

Ok, this morning I burned a couple of discs, everything was working fine, logged in to the net, logged out. Then I went to the store. I don't recall if I shut it down or let it go to sleep, I think I let it go to sleep. When I got back I noticed it was off. So I pushed the button and the lights came up on the floppy, and the CD trays, then they went out. So I pushed the button and held it in--lights came on, then everythig went dark: like unto no power. So, this is a power unit gone up, or what?

I checked all the connections and tried it again--same. So, now I have the Dell on line. Oy.

Barebones it Donn.

PSU
CPU + heatsinc + fan
RAM one stick
mouse
keys
monitor

Try to enter setup. Anything?

Holding the button in forces a shutdown. Just press it once and let go.

Right, but I don't know what that means--I've nevr done anything with those parts before. Can you go point A to point B for me?

When I shut down the Dell tonight I'll just plug in the power cord on the Compaq and see if it starts, but I did that three times already and it went out on me--lights on the floppy and CD-ROM trays and then nothing, it goes out. :(

edit: that's 3 times with a quick flick of the start button, not holding it down.

I'll be home all day tomorrow (eastern US time) so I'll have time to run some procedures.

Funny, just this week I had a Compaq with similar symptoms. It was rebooting by itself randomly. I checked and the power supply voltages were way off and the power supply itself was running really really hot. I assumed it was PS, and told my client so. Four days later, the thing rebooted spontaneously, and got running up almost to the XP log in screen, before rebooting again in this weird loop. Using the XP advanced startup menu I was able to disable the "automatically reboot on errors" setting (I can't remember exactly what it is called right now) - this way I got as far as a STOP error message, so at least I knew it was hardware something.

When I peeked in the case.....several bulging capacitors....I wonder if yours might be doing the same thing?

It reminds me of when I was working at Apple, we would start getting tons of phone calls all at once for a particular model, for CMOS batteries. Sure enough when we checked the serial numbers on the units, they were all manufactured together near the same time.

I wonder if your Compaq is related to mine? Two years old, AMD Athlon XP for a CPU?

Hey there Ms. Fixit, thanks for your comments, I'm on an (OEM) Win ME OS on this Compaq; it is 3--4 years old, Celeron (supposed to be a PIII) 256 RAM 40 Gig HDD; the Dell is an Xp.

I plugged the Compaq in, and pushed the button, and the sucker lit up like a department store. Working from it right now. . .go figure.

I already have: this machine is haunted. And to make matters freakier, after I took it off line yesterday it was footbal time on TV. So I flicked on the ol' remote and prepared to watch the Ravens/Giants game--the TV starts changing stations by itself. That is not funny.

I don't know if you are old enough to recall the phrase, but sometimes I feel like Arlo sitting on the Group W bench. . . fer litterin'? Well, whatever, it's just not fair. . . .

So, maybe the Compaq just needed to go stand in the corner for a while, and maybe there is a hardware issue that is just starting to show itself. I am going to check the fan all day, and I will take your advice about the capacitors, and later today open the box and look for little fat bulging ones. Maybe the off/on switch is going up, or got some debris in it that moving it around knocked out. . . ?

Right now I am eating my oatmeal, something that cannot and WILL NOT give me any grief. . . :p

Edit: forgot to mention--I have been getting some screen freeze, every so often--every other day or so-- on various sites (even this one), and I am running all updated Adaware, SpyBot, A Sqrd, AV, everything, so something is amiss somewhere. If anyone has any ideas. . . . Thanks