MY Aunt called me up saying that her comp just went out on her just a few days before her wedding day. She needs to get a bunch of pictures printed and all that good stuff.
She asked me to fix it because I can work around basic fixes, but I"m somewhat doubtful on this one because I can't even get a POST message to come out of this unit for me to research to know exactly what is the problem.
She has an refurbished Dell Studio XPS™ 435MT that she bought probably 5-6 years ago.
Problem: When the power button is pressed, the power button will light up for a moment and then nothing will happen except for maybe the fans will start spinning and stop within a moment just like the light for the power button.
Things I have done but did not help the problem:
- I've taken my Ultra Power supply tester from my toolkit and all of the lights light up except for -5 & -12 which the 24 pin connector doesn't have in this case so I am pretty sure that the power supply is good. Also, the little light on the MOBO is lit up.
- The next morning I took the case and removed all of the ram. Took one stick at a time and at the unit actually booted; however, this didn't last long. The computer was unplugged all night long and it seems to startup for a little while, but once it has been plugged in for even just 5-10 minutes it does the same thing and just won't boot.
- I checked to see if I could find the cord so I could hear the POST, but I am not seeing anything unplugged within this unit.
- I've swapped out the battery in the BIOS just to see, but that didn't do anything.
- I've also swapped monitors with a monitor I know is working
- I've unplugged everything from the desktop that isn't really needed for the computer to boot
I'm starting to think it is the motherboard, but I was hoping to get a second and maybe even a third opinion on this one. Without that POST message to verify my assumptions, I'm a little uncertain on this one.
Thanks for any help you can give in this matter.