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**BeBMan** · April 23, 2008, 12:12

RIP

**OneFootInTheGrave** · April 23, 2008, 12:34

ermmmm...

on no signs of life: do the fans spin at all? if not than there is definitely no power in the PC (did you plug it in correctly into the mains?, and have not unplugged any power cables by accident when removing the gfx card? )

if it's all plugged correctly and nothing at all than it's the PSU :-)

PSU was crap Dell after all.. and it started giving up... so serious errors were coming with bad power regulation... after the firecracker it should have stopped though.... so maybe it gave up the ghost right now... no easy way to check this unless you have some other PSU handy to see if the PC will start up with it attached...

other than that, get a new PC, but keep the gfx card and old hdd which you can hopefully still use and are really easy to put in... unless you want to invest some effort to repair this box, but this usually is more effort than it's worth at todays prices, as you have no idea what else this failing PSU might have damaged while dying...

**DirtyMartini** · April 23, 2008, 12:45

Nothing -- no response at all. It is strange. It was booting up just find Monday night, but had the freezes. Tuesday after work I came home and decided to swap out the video card (stupid -- I was pretty sure that wasn't the problem at this point) before even booting it up. After the cards were swapped -- nothing. Don't think I dislodged anything.

Any other thoughts? I'll probably end up taking the whole thing in. Maybe the shop can salvage some of the components and build me something.

**OneFootInTheGrave** · April 23, 2008, 12:51

if you are sure it's not the cables than your Power Supply Unit (PSU) is dead...

those things are relatively cheap (20-30$) for decent low power one if you want to try it yourself, and it is just plugging in the cables which should match (assuming that Dell does not have non-standard plugs in their PC's which I think they do not)...

watch out with the shop charge, as dependable on what it is they could charge a lot of $$$ so that it might be more worth to buy a new PC... lastly you can salvage your old gfx card and hard drive yourself for sure... see how much they will charge you and than make your move for either repair or new... new is usually better value though...

**Alinestra Covelia** · April 23, 2008, 18:26

OFITG has said everything I would have said. Although I'm not a computer whizz by any means my brother is, and I've hung around at his shoulder to watch his coax life back into several machines

Good luck in resurrecting your computer!

**ZEE** · April 23, 2008, 19:26

RIP

Thankfully I put my old PC (BABY) out of its misery before she kicked the bucket. I knew it was her time (Sound Card failing, Hard Drive Clanking, VERY outdated w/ single processor and old motherboard)

But on the bright side I have my new and wonderful ZEKE!

ZEKE is VERY stubborn sometimes tho...

**snoopy369** · April 23, 2008, 22:45

Actually, it does not necessarily mean the PSU is dead (and the circumstances imply it's less likely, actually, although certainly PSU failure is the most likely cause of that symptom). An improperly seated/connected video card will cause the machine to make no attempt at starting whatsoever. Ensure that your video card does not require additional power (many do) and that you didn't unplug ANYTHING (especially the secondary MB power cord if needed, though dell usually doesn't have that).

**Aeson** · April 23, 2008, 23:39

The initial symptoms seem a lot like a CPU dying. It sounds like it took something else out with it though.

**Soltz** · April 24, 2008, 00:05

I feel your pain. My desktop died last night and I'm down to using a crappy Dell laptop for next few days.

**Omni Rex Draconis** · April 24, 2008, 10:59

"I heard a loud "SNAP", like a firecracker, in my office -- think it came from the computer. Thought -- that's can't be good at all."

If you are mucking around inside the case, then you should be able to pin down the source (and cost) of your woes.

Check the power supply light at the back of the unit. If it is off or flashing, then replacing it is cheap and easy as has already been pointed out.

If power is go, remove all memory and PCI/etc. cards from the system. Try to start it. The motherboard should complain about the lack of memory with a series of beeps. No beeps - bad motherboard; buy yourself a new computer.

If motherboard is go, start adding your components back in one at a time, memory and video card first, until your problem comes back. Or doesn't; sometimes things just need to be reseated.

Best of luck.

**DirtyMartini** · April 24, 2008, 13:59

I looked around the net for guides to diagnosing this sort of thing -- they all sounded do-able, but tedious.

Snoopy -- I thought maybe the video card wasn't seated correctly and I tried reinstalling it a couple times -- I didn't actually clean the pick-ups. No luck.

There is a wire hanging out there with no home, but as far as I can tell, it's coming from the CD burner -- can't imagine that would keep it from attempting to power on even if unplugged.

Anyway, I weighed my visions of spending hours and hours mucking about with the thing against my visions of spending dollars and more dollars getting it professionally looked at. I opted for the expensive, but low effort approach. I'll let you know what I find out -- I'm sure you're all on the edges of your seats.

**DirtyMartini** · April 25, 2008, 21:08

And the answer is...dead video card. The whole "won't power up at all" issue was me being computer illiterate. On the bright side -- was still under warranty, so I got a free upgrade.

There, now you should all be able to sleep again.

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