Dell 2400 wont turn on!

hello

my grand mother called me today and ask me to come over and take a look at her pc because it wounld not turn on. I ended up bring the thing home to look closers at it. it simply will not start. I know that the power supply is ok because i used my atx power supply test and the fans and the green light on the tester came on. And i know its not the flimsy power swithch thats on the pc because took one of one of the dells at work that is the same same dell modle. I am realy stumped as to what else to do. Some times the power light on the from of the case will flash but thats about all i can get it to do. if any one could come up with an idea please let me know. thanks everyone

 

sounds like power supply but if your sure the tester is reliable then i guess move on, however i have a tester that is not reliable so i always test the system by just using a good power supply to be sure, That said. I would strip it down to just hard drive and floppy and if no boot, start swapping out memory etc.. if you get something then you can narrow it down. It is a dell so you may get errors when using aftermarket parts.

 

Are you sure its not the power switch? I have a Dell computer also and the same sort of problem happened to me. Sometime the switch slipes off the clips on the case, and your only pushing the power button in half way. That might be the reason the green light flickers on and off.

Goodluck...

 

When i used the ATX Power supplie tester drives and the power supplie all powered up so i am pretty sure that its fine. I had another dell 2400 at the office so i barrowed the power switch off it and it still would not turn on. I am starting to think that the motherboard is bad. if it was the processor the system would still but and i would get the beeping tones from the speaker on the board.

Thanks again

 

what are the beeps? have you counted them?

 

there are no post operation beeps for the motherboard. That is what leads me to belive that its the mother board it self. If it was somthing like a bad processor it would still boot and give me the beeps.

After looking at the mother board four time there look like there is a burnt spot on one of the chip that are on the board. i am gona take the board out of the case and take a closer look to see what i can tell from a closer look.

 

Try resetting the cmos jumper,also you only need the very basics to diagnose the problem,unplug any add in cards,cdroms,floppy ect,if the computer is older than 5 years it may be worth a go replacing the cmos battery,any chance os seeing a photo of the burnt spot?

 

how bout them photos....?? Sorrry man but that is almost a definate motherboard replacement, if the burned chip has deep corrosion underneath as well, Of course unless you trust your soldering skills, but you really have nothing to loose at that point anyway sooooo what the hell. Thats how i first learned.