Computer won't start up

Computer Forum General Hardware
1

I went to turn on my computer today and when I pressed the power button nothing happened. At first I suspected it was maybe the power switch on the case. I unplugged the power cord from my Belkin battery backup surge protector and plugged the cord directly into a wall socket. When I pressed the power button this time I heard a spark-like sound behind the power switch and then the fans all turned on and then powered down within 10 seconds or so. I tried it again and this time the fans all came on and stayed on. Nothing else happened. When I plugged the power cord back into the surge protector, same result – all fans power on, but nothing else happens.

I am running an AMD Athlon 2100+ that is around 3 years old. Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP v 2.0, also about 3 years old. PSU is an Antec Phantom 350w about 3 months old.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

2

Reset the CMOS. If that doesn’t work, remove and firmly reseat every connection and component.

3

I tried both suggestions and nothing changed. All fans come on but nothing else happens. No system beeps, either. I even tried to boot with nearly everything disconnected, but to no avail.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

4

There’s a lot of variables at play here, but I suspect the RAM. You might try replacing it with known working RAM and see if that makes a difference.

-AT

5

Another thing you might try is a different power supply that you know is working. Basically, we’re looking at a process of elimination here.