I have a Dell Dimension C521 running Windows XP. Recently the computer all of a sudden stopped working the screen flashed and froze and than the computer shut down. Now whenever I attempt to boot up the computer it gets stuck on power savor mode and there is no display. There are several things that I have tested so far. I have removed the hard drive and attached it externally to my laptop and confirmed that the hard drive was working properly. I have reset the BIOS by removing the battery on the motherboard. The power supply boots up and the fans spin so I thought it was working properly, but when I removed the RAM and booted up the computer I did not get the three beebs to confirm that the power supply was working properly. I have tried several monitors and several different power cords and VGA cables. The computer has a built in graphics output on the motherboard and an external graphics card have used both outputs and booted up with no graphics card and I am getting no display at all. Any help or advice in what I can do would be great. Thanks in advance. -Bryan
same thread as http://www.hardwareforums.com/threads/possible-motherboard-failure.28214/ i made my comments there.
ok obvious questions first: 1) tried a different psu? 2) tried the same psu on a different comp? 3) with everything plugged in does the system spin up like it should or are there parts that seem to be going slower/stopping? all in all sounds like a psu to me. I'd try the manual like violetblueskies suggested but more then likely your gonna need a new psu