Dead Computer

Greetings,

I know this will be an extremley difficult question to answer and all that I would like are some guidelines. My daughters computer will not power up. One day it worked, the next it did not. My first thought was to replace the power supply. That was not it. There is a tiny green led on the motherboard that is lit when the power cord is attached. There does not appear to be any obvious signs of failure on the motherboard; i.e. no swollen capacitors or burned transistors etc... I asked her if she smelled anything burning and she said no. My next guess is that the processor failed. Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks in advance.

Bill

 

Most of the time if the processor failed, than the computer will power on, but not POST. In other words, the fans will start spinning and lights come on, but you wouldn't get a display and the computer would not boot windows.

If the computer does nothing when you press the power button, try removing everything: Hard drive, RAM, PCI cards, floppy drive, ect. Leave only the motherboard, processor and power supply connected. Push the power button and see if the fans starts spinning. If that doesn't work, try another power supply. if that doesn't work, try shorting out the power switch using a screwdriver (connect the power sw pins together using the metal of the screwdriver). If that doesn't work, bad motherboard/processor. Probably motherboarde