No idea what to do

[Smk911]

Hi, I really need some help or information about what the heck has happened to my computer. I have a 64 bit windows 7 Dell Zino HD Inspiron. It's about four years old and has worked fine for most of that time, but about a month ago it decided to switch off without any prompt, which I thought was weird. When I went to power it back on, I realised that it had its amber light on which normally symbolises that its in Sleep or Hibernate mode. The problem is that none of the peripherals were responding to me or the system. The mouse and keyboard were not causing it to wake and when I eventually cut its power and tried again it seemed to be working, but during the boot up where it shows Dell Inspiron and the rest of the model type, the screen just cut to black and then it did it's weird Sleep mode action.

I have no idea why this is happening, I hadn't added any hardware or software to the computer for a while before it started to play about, and I noticed it made a slight ticking noise before switching "off". I eventually managed to get it on by removing all the peripherals, mouse, keyboard, HDMI cable and a power cable, turning off the power at the mains and removing the power plug, waited a few minutes and then connected it all up again, or so I think this helped make it work for the 15 minutes that it did and then it switched "off" again.

Really lost here guys hopefully I have provided enough information of what happened to get someone to know slightly what is wrong here, sorry for no specs currently on another computer at this time.

Thanks

 

[KomputerKid]

Hi smk911, I'd like to try to go one step further than you already have gone. Please unplug the computer and remove the battery. Then hold the power button down for about 30 seconds then reconnect and try again. Also if you can provide us with the model number of your Inspiron it will help.

 

[DaveBurnett]

That sounds like "the tick of death" that is produced by traditional hard drives when they are about to fail.
I would suggest you make sure you have a back up of your system, and get the disk checked ASAP.

 

[flavallee]

I agree with Dave about the hard drive.

What's the "service tag" number and/or "express service code" number on that Dell Inspiron Zino HD desktop?

Is it the 400 or 410 model?

Do you live in the U.S.A. or a different country?

----------------------------------------------------------

 

[valis]

as this is a dell, have you tried the diag boot yet? I, too, believe it's the HD, but may as well let the pc check.

With everything plugged in (assuming it powers up) and with it off, hold the fn key and hit power.