I’m glad you got it sorted, but I can’t imagine that was Vista which was doing that. If you’d only just powered up, the BIOS would still be doing a POST. Vista wouldn’t have been started by then.
Sounds more like a hardware problem, check the ram to make sure it is seated right,
It also sounds like it COULD be the Motherboard going Bad..Also look for shorts or bad wires..
I had exactly the same problem the other day, I was using my PC then all of a sudden it went completely powerless, and when I tried to turn it back on there was nothing, just a minute rotation of the fan, and all l.e.d’s were on, just no power. I just bought a new power supply and it’s working fine now I just got a 550w extra value one off ebuyer it had ok reviews, so if it happens again I would say it’s the power supply on the way out, replacing it was the only thing that worked for me
My thoughts exactly. When I encounter people who get those short bursts, it usually doesn’t go away so easily. Regardless, it immediately makes me lean towards the PSU, mobo, or RAM.
Are you sure that your PSU is sufficient for the parts in your computer? If this happens again, you can unplug all the unnecessary parts from the computer and power it up to see if it displays. Basically, just leave power to the video card (if it needs it) and the mobo. Obviously, leave the RAM in place, but unplug things like the hdd, optical drives, etc.
Also, while you’re in there (in the case), check for blown capacitors.
Lastly, when this is occurring, you should be able to remove all sticks of RAM (while the computer is off and unplugged) and the computer should just beep at you, giving an error code. If this is not happening, there is more than likely a problem with the BIOS/Motherboard.
My laptop is doing similar business. Power = wifi led, dvdrom led, battery-charging led, then dead. It takes about 3 seconds, i.e. no bios loading. The problem has been intermittent, but increasingly worse. I have also seen hd sector fault messages from time to time, but that is either an artifact or unrelated, since the bios should be able to load even in the absense of the hd. When I remove the wifi card, the hd and dvdrom, power = blink of battery led and then dead, completely silent. Under no circumstances does the power led come on.