odd power up

[justiceny8]

A friend gave me his tower to clean up because it was running slow. The day he dropped it off he said his son turned it on and nothing came on the screen.. I hook it up to my monitor and power it up. It appears to power up shut of real quick and then power back on. My monitor doesn't acknowledge anything (my power on stays dim amber instead of green) My monitor is fine. I first assumed maybe the video card was bad. Purchased a new one, same thing happens. Could this be the power supply going? Its a dell computer and no beeps are happening during this...

[Fruss Tray Ted]

You could be correct in your assumption that the PSU is failing but it may be other issues as well. Download Sylvander's Flow Charts for starters and also learn how to do a barebones boot. By your noticing no beep at all, something is amiss with your core hardware ie mobo, PSU, CPU, HSF and RAM so disconnecting any internal peripherals (barebones by unattaching cdrom, HDD etc) to see if a single beep returns is a definite first step.

I assume there is a pc speaker and that it is not muted? Ask your friend if it used to single beep on power up.

[justiceny8]

You could be correct in your assumption that the PSU is failing but it may be other issues as well. Download Sylvander's Flow Charts for starters and also learn how to do a barebones boot. By your noticing no beep at all, something is amiss with your core hardware ie mobo, PSU, CPU, HSF and RAM so disconnecting any internal peripherals (barebones by unattaching cdrom, HDD etc) to see if a single beep returns is a definite first step.

I assume there is a pc speaker and that it is not muted? Ask your friend if it used to single beep on power up.


I unattached everything. Still the same thing. I power on, it sounds like its booting up, fan is going, hd is making crunching sounds like usual. Monitor doesn't go on. Keyboard lights blink. It then powers off on its own, and then powers back on, still not showing anything on the monitor. No beeps. The guy doesn't know anything or if anything even happened. He said his young sons used the pc all the time, the youngest turned it on one day and nothing happened. He said he had a tech guy come to the house and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. I was going to pull the power supply from my PC and try it with his but i don't want to mess mine up if there is something else wrong.This is what the PC is running Thanks :)

System Summary

System Type: Dimension 4550
Ship Date: 11/25/2002
Dell IBU: Americas



Quantity Parts # Part Description

1 2U819 CARD (CIRCUIT), PLANAR (MOTHERBOARD), DIM4550, AUDIO/NIC
1 9U540 PROCESSOR, 80532, 2.0G, 512K, 400, SOCKET N, C1
1 7N242 KEYBOARD, 104, UNITED STATES, SILITEK, LOW COST, MIDNIGHT GRAY
1 6U220 KIT, MOUSE, PERSONAL SYSTEM 2, S69, LOGITECH
1 4N567 KIT, SPEAKER, 120V, HK206, NMB, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION
1 5740C CABLE, AUXILIARY, INTERNAL, MODEM, 4C
1 8F217 MODEM, V.92, INTERNAL, DATA/FAX/VOICE, SOFT, Z, DIMENSION
1 8T412 COMPACT DISK DRIVE, 680M, I, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, 48X, SAMSUNG, 148C, CHASSIS 2001
1 1K525 DISPLAY, CATHODE-RAY TUBE, 17, DUAL, M782P, MIDNIGHT GRAY, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION
1 9K099 CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 32MB, ATI TECHNOLOGIES INC, FULL HEIGHT, SECOND
1 5R212 FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, 3.5" FORM FACTOR, 3MD, NO BEZEL, NEC CORPORATION, CHASSIS 2001
1 6K223 KIT, SOFTWARE, WKS-STE2K2, 5.25" FORM FACTOR, ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MFGR., ENGLAND/ENGLISH
1 6W678 KIT, SOFTWARE, OVERPACK, WXPHSP1, COMPACT DISKETTE W/DOCUMENTATION, ENGLAND/ENGLISH
1 3K113 DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 256, 266M, 32X64, 8K, 184
1 2K222 HARD DRIVE, 120G, I, 1N, 7.2K, WD-XL40

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Connect ONLY the mobo to the power supply and have one stick of RAM inserted. Also connect the keyboard, mouse and internal speaker. Fire it up and see if there is a single POST beep. If not, try a different stick of ram until there is no others to try. Post back the results and we'll move from there.

[justiceny8]

Connect ONLY the mobo to the power supply and have one stick of RAM inserted. Also connect the keyboard, mouse and internal speaker. Fire it up and see if there is a single POST beep. If not, try a different stick of ram until there is no others to try. Post back the results and we'll move from there.



I messed it up, i put new ram in and it booted up, still nothing to the monitor then a spark popped on the MB and now it doesnt even turn on... Time for the garbage.