Dell Desktop won't boot up

[jackieofalltrades]

I had a similar problem a few years ago. (Can't remember the model, but it was a Dell desktop.) It turned out to be a corrupt piece of RAM. Try removing one at a time and booting up. That may help.

edit: this post is showing up as #1 in the thread, with a time stamp 8 hrs before I actually posted. Not sure what is going on, but hope you see this and it helps.

PS: I can't predict the future, or else I would have giant winnings from the lottery by now!

[geoff1248]

I have a Dimension 9200 which has decided that it's had enough. I went downstairs to make a coffee came back and the machine had turned itself off. Turned it back on again and it got to the boot up screen and promptly turned itself off again. I tried to enter the set-up by pressing F2 and even tried booting in safe mode by hitting the F8 key but it turns itself off before it has loaded the keyboard driver. So it starts up to the Dell loading screen and then turns off.
Any suggestions or should I write a letter to Santa?

[JamesT73J]

Geoff,

Are you getting past the BIOS self-test and bootstrap? Try removing any peripherals apart from the keyboard and mouse; problems with the USB bus can sometimes cause this behaviour.

If you are getting to Windows boot and the machine is looping into a reboot, see if you can get a recovery disk (any will do) that allows you to get to a command line. Run chkdsk /f ; this can clear the error.

[geoff1248]

No not getting past the BIOS self test. I get about 8-10 secs of bootstrap before it turns off. All periferals are removed except wireless mouse and keyboard.

[JamesT73J]

Oh dear. Is it possible heat cycling has unseated any cables? Sata plugs good culprits. I'd listen (and watch) the fans and drives to check everything is getting power.

Might be worth resetting the CMOS if all else fails - this can either be done by removing the battery or jumpering a socket on the board for that purpose, but this is getting a bit radical. Self test passing okay with no beeps?

[geoff1248]

As you suggested I think I will check all the internal components, including PSU, to ensure they are all correctly seated. Resetting the CMOS will be a last resort.
The machine is beep free while attempting to boot up and never manages to self test.

[green granite]

Re-seat all the ram as well while you have the cover off.

[geoff1248]

Well, spend a couple of hours with the machine in bits. Reseated the RAM sticks, graphics card, firewire card in fact just about everything that could be disconnected and refitted. Finally gave it a good clean out with the vac (do they supply the dust and fluff when you buy the machines?) and put it all back together again. Fired it up and all is good. Don't know which fix actually worked but let's see if it continues to run. Thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated.

[hellsbrink]

You would be amazed at how much vibration will come off a fan (especially the CPU fan) when the dust bunnies start breeding. That vibration can be enough to fubar the connection to a graphics card, ram, etc, as well as the obvious issue of some dust sneaking into one of the "slots".

So now you have a little hint of what has to be done, the thing that the vast majority of computer users never do. Clean the effer out every 3 moths or so by first stripping it down (like you just have), giving everything a GOOD blast of "sprayduster" to get the dust out, removing the CPU fan so you can clean that AND use a natural hair paintbrush to get all the gunge out of the cooling vanes of the CPU heatsink and any other heatsink you see (ALWAYS use a natural hair brush as them plastic ones may generate a bit of static leccy which, with the static present due to dust, can fry components) and then vacuum out all the dust and cack that has landed on the bottom of your computer case.

Also, make sure your power cable is connected and have a part of your skin in contact with the metal of the case. This will mean you are "earthed" (since the earth connection to the power supply will still be connected to electrical earth) and that will lower the risk of more static being generated. And don't forget to take out the power supply, open that, and clean it out too, especially the big fan on it too.

A clean computer is quieter, when you hear more noise than when it is "clean" that will mean there will be a buildup of gawdknowswhat on fans and that can/will cause issues.

[Mike-Bracknell]

From those symptoms, sounds like the PSU is on it's last legs. Relatively cheap fix, but check if you still have warranty remaining first by visiting the Dell website with your tag number.

[Mr Optimistic]

Always worth a hard reset first: disconnect psu, take out battery, hold down start button for a few seconds. Won me a bottle of red a few weeks ago when I rescued a ladies laptop. Always the gallant hero.

[hellsbrink]

So, in reality, you reset the BIOS since you "removed the battery" then hit the "power on" button.

Everything else was superfluous, you only reset the bios and no more.