doesnt boot, no beeps, anything

okay a bit of a long story here...

whenever i go out of town, i turn the black switch on the back of my power supply to "off" so nobody can turn it on (without looking back there)

anyways, i went out of town last weekend and came back last sunday. like always, i went to the back of the power supply and cut the power on, then hit the main computer power up front. 2 lights come on up front, keyboard lights up and mouse lights up. but the computer doesnt boot, no beeps or anything. i keep messing around with it and finally get the thing to turn on. it then says boot disk failure. so i turned it off and started it back up. boots up just fine.

fast forward to the next day, monday. im running the machine all day, and i decided to burn a few cds. i burn one and start another. i took a nap and when i got up the computer screen was frozen. so i restart it. nothing comes up on the screen, nothing.

the cpu fan comes on, the hard drive spins, and the other day the bottom cd drive opened, but it doesnt now. i get the green power light on the computer and the red hard drive light at first then it goes off. its sitting here next to me right now with the green light on and the fan spinning. what the heck is the problem? i was leaning towards the power supply since thats what i was messing with when i got back. but that really doesnt make sense because the cpu fan runs and the hard drive spins.

its not the power cord
the memory sticks are attached well (ive double checked)
ive checked all the connections to the mother board, unplugged and rechecked.
cd drives dont open
keyboard lights blink right when i turn it on
i dont get anything on the monitor, it does absolutely nothing when i turn the computer on. im pretty sure its connected well


can anybody help me here????

 

disconnect or remove everything except 1 stick of ram, video card, powersupply, cpu.

does it post?......if so, then add one component at a time until you see which one is causing the problem.


if it still doesnt post, then trial and error to see which one of the 5 components (memory, video card, motherboard, cpu, powersupply) needs replacement.

 

doesnt post....

video is integrated.

ive already tried removing both memory sticks and putting them in new slots but nothing happens

 

There is a switch on the powersupply (it should be black or red and recessed) that selects the voltage. Make sure it is set for 120 and not switched to the higher settings. If it is set correctly I would try to get another powersupply and connect it to see if the powersupply is bad. Good Luck and let us know if you need anything further.

 

yeah the red switch is on 115.

i dont have any power supplys here at school so im gonna have to wait until the end of the month when i go home to test it.

i might be able to test it through one of my friends at school though

 

I meant does it post AFTER you have disconnected all the drives, etc.

 

nope it doesnt

 

Id be interested in the inspecific "messing around" at the beggining of the story. What did you do that made it work kinda, and then have that boot failure?

Also did you ever consider someone might have found that well hidden power switch, messed with you're computer, then left it in the off position to throw you off? That one sounds the most plausible if you didn't screw it up with the power switch somehow. And if you did mess it up the power supply a compatible Power supply Should fix you're problem.

 

the messing around i did was flipping the switch on and off and turning the main power off and on


nobody came here while i was gone and i know what the on and off positions look like. right now it doesnt turn on in the off position and it turns on in the on position....so scratch that idea i guess

 

Ick sorry man. So now it still doesn't really work even though you've bypassed the switch? (lol) Well if it wass working fine before you left, a new power supply seems like a good option.

 

if fans run and board lights up but no beeps and no post, I would suspect either the motherboard or processor at this point.

The are the only 2 components that fail with no beep codes.

could be the powersupply but I hesitate to say that as you are getting power.

 

maybe its not getting enough power anymore??? im thinking its the power supply since its the only thing i touched but i dunno. i'll find out whenever i hook another one up.

 

well when you install another try more voltage maybe = )

 

What O.S. are you running? 98, me xp? Sounds to me your boot files have landed on a bad cluster.
Try doing a dirty install of your opperating system. Basically your putting in missing files back on your hard drive.

It will ask you if you want to keep your data, choose yes.

Boot to cd rom and go through the installation procedures.

Might want to start backing up some files first.

 

how can i do that? it doesnt even boot into bios let alone the operating system