Mr. Teh. Mouse: A newbie with a stupid problem

[Mr.TeH.Mouse]

Hey there,

            Okay, so here it is; my problem.  Whilst firing up my computer it decided not to play, I hit the power switch and the power L.E.D switches on, the fan sounds like it's doing it's thing but nothing else, monitor still stays in stand-by mode and my tower just sits there doing nowt.  I know it's a bit vague but as anyone whose talked to me on this especially from the Ory thing last year will know I'm not around computers enough to know where to start.  Don't expect much back but any help wil be great, cheers.

Mr Teh Mouse

[sarahA]

How's the connection between the monitor and tower? Check that lead is in properly. Also, in stand by mode does your monitor have a light on? if not then check there's actual power getting into the monitor. If you can, try a different monitor if you or a friend has one spare. That's the easier option to rule out first.

[Chris H]

My boys' pc does that if they leave their ipod plugged in the usb.

[slaughteredlamb]

I take it that the computer isn't even making it to POST, i.e. normally when you boot up a PC you here one short beep a few seconds after hitting the power button which indicates that the computer has completed and past POST?

If you are not hearing that beep then it could:

Power Supply Failure: If the PSU has lost one of the power rails than there won't be enough power to boot up the processor but will still make fan's spin and LED's light up
CPU Failure: If the CPU has failed than your computer won't do much at all
Motherboard Failure: Ouch! New PC time.
RAM Failure: Without RAM your computer won't get very far but I would have expected a slightly different response to that which you seem to say you are getting if it were a RAM issue.

I would think there's a god chance it's 'just' a dead PSU which a quick visit to your local PC store will quickly resolve.

[Tanthalas]

If your RAM were dead, the computer would likely make it to the memory check, so you'd see something onscreen.  CPUs don't fail nearly as much as motherboards and PSUs (IME, unless you're overclocking them), so I'd be steering towards one of those two.  One of my towers I recently took out of storage is doing an identical trick, and I think it's the motherboard.

[Matt]

Id take it to someone who knows, my guess would be a simple reseat of the ram or cmos battery could fix it, we find that a lot here, otherwise mobo or PSU.

[Curry]

I seen similar issues with faulty/dead PSU (And I would say this was the most likely) but as others have said Motherboard is a possibility.

[Mr.TeH.Mouse]

Cheers guys,

Few ideas to try, better than getting a new tower anyway.  Thanks very much for the replies.

Mouse