What the heck went wrong now?

Hi
I hope someone can help me ... again.
I woke up this morning and went to log backon my computer and nothing.
The monitor light was on, the screen was black,,, and the computer was off. I leave it on over night... and just log the user out.
I tried rebooting and it didnt help. i had a hard time geting the "on" button to go green but it finally did. The fans seem to work. I did notice that my keyboard light was off, but my mouse light was on.
I switched monitors and it showed no power source. After unplugging and replugging everything, even reseating the memory chips... I still cannot get it working.
I had a new HD that I tried to connect but it never even brought up the screen to go to BIOS.
any suggestions?
Thanks

 

Do you get any POST beeps? If not then I would suspect either the video card or the power supply. So I would first take the video card out to see if it gave a normal POST beep. If it didn't I would next take out the RAM - IF it POSTs then it is the video that has failed and if not almost certainly the power supply Unit.

 

Ok I heard no beeps when I started the computer. I removed the video card...still no beeps. I took the memory out and restarted..again no beeps. I guess from what you say that part of my power supply is kaput!!
I have never had one of those go out on me so I was unaware that some stuff would still work if it went bad. The fans are all fine.
If you think it is something else I would appreciate knowing... or if I need to replace the power supply.. do you have any suggestions what I need to look for? Like I said.. I dont know too much about them.
Thanks

 

The power supply Unit provides different voltages such as 12V, -12V, 5V, -5V, 3.3V so if one of thesehas failed then you can get the situation you are in. PSUs aren't expensive and not particularly difficult to fit. Or you could buy a power tester that you plug the main supply cable from the PSU into and it can tell you which voltages are there or not. Or you could use a multimeter to do the same thing.

 

Well... 8 hours and $40 later I am still without my computer. I had my son check the power supply and it showed one weak module.. I guess that is an ok way to describe it? so I bought one .. came home and installed it and there is no change. any more suggestions???

 

Well the next thing I would do is disconnect all the peripherals. By this I mean the CD drive, the DVD drive, the floppy drive etc. Also remove the video card and the RAM.

Try a boot - any POST beeps now?
If yes put the things back one at a time to find out where it fails.
If not your motherboard may have died.

 

Ok it appears ...after talking with an Emachine tekkie that it is the MOBO... here are my specs.. off their site...... any idea which MOBO would be a better replacement for this one? I hate to spend $130 for that sucker.... since I just replaced one in another computer recently.
Thanks

MB: MB,MSI-6734 462P
CPU: CPU,ATHLON XP 2800 462P 333FSB 512K
HDD: HDD, 120GB 5400rpm 100564
ODD1: DVD, NEXGEN 16X 100127
ODD2: CDRW,NEXGEN2 48X (48X24X48) 2434
CPU Fan Type: FAN,H/S Athlon 2600+

 

Well, personally I won't recommend any particular make or model of any sort of hardware as it all depends on how nuch cash you are willing to spend and what exactly you use the PC for. In this instance Google is your friend.