Comments on: How to Troubleshoot a Computer That Won't Start

on 11/28/2007 I have a problem. almost exactly with bozaktwo1 i dont have the exact same graphics card or anything, but i was playing a video game and then all the sudden the monitor and computer restarted and then as it was restarting the monitor did not come on. the computer was going could hear the fan and HD and everything. i had this problem before and i took out my graphics card and plug my monitor to the standard plug-in and it worked well this time it wont even come on when i plug it into that. i took the card out and everything and it still seems not to work. i even tryed a new monitor and the secondary monitor comes up with no-signal. but my orindary monitor doesnt come up with that. i havent tryed a new grahpics card i wish i had a spare laying around but i dont so if anyone knows how to make sure it is the card and not the computer or monitor please let me know. thanks

on 10/18/2007 My 14 month old eMachine won't start. I pust the on button, the fans work, but nothing else happens. The power light stays on, but doen't blink like usual, and there is no sound coming from the hard drive. I did try the hard drive in another pc and had to use the restore disk to get it going. It worked as long as it was in the 2nd pc. But it will not work when put back in the original pc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

on 6/11/2007 My HP desktop machine recently died. It is less than 2 years ol, and the only upgrade I have done is to replace the graphics card. My motherboard has no onboard graphics, so I must have a standalone video card installed in order to plug my monitor in. The card I had been running was a BFG nVidea GeForce 5500OC in AGP8x interface. My power supply unit is a Lite-On 250w, with 14a on the 12v rail. At the time it died, it had been running all night. The machine's case is not well-ventilated, and the room was pretty hot a lot of time. The following morning, I went to use the thing, and it was locked up. So I did a cold reboot, and got a black screen. The fans were all running, the hd was humming, but nothing...no boot, not even to the BIOS menu. After many hours of troubleshooting, testing the psu, the hard drive and all, I came to the video card. I removed it and placed a 64mb ATI card in one of the PCI slots, and voila! Success. So I am now buying and installing a new video card and a new psu to support it, and I am cutting vents in my case.

on 6/11/2007 I forgot to add, somebody please help me if they can give me advice about my computer!

on 8/6/2007 I found this article trying to find out why my computer won't start. I pushed the button Tuesday night and nothing happened. I checked the surge protector, the monitor and all of the connections and everything was okay. The light on the front doesn't come on and there is no sound of a fan. It has not been giving me any trouble and I always make sure I turn it off properly. I though about buying a new power cord from the computer yo the outlet to see if that works.

on 6/11/2007 Some BIOS check that the CPU fan is rotating, and if it is not (or if there is something wrong with your fans rev counter) then it will switch off the power supply after 2 seconds. The solution is to change the CPU fan with a new 3 lead fan. Of course you can disable this feature in BIOS, but you can't get to the BIOS setup if the computer turns off after 2 seconds.

on 6/11/2007 When the fan starts, but nothing else does, the power supply unit may need to be replaced.