Computer woes

[Bruce Page]

:( I went to power up our home PC last night and it wouldn’t boot. I can hear the cooling fan running but that’s it. There’s nothing happening on the monitor except it telling me that it’s going to sleep. Any suggestions before I unplug everything and take it in?
It's about 2 years old running XP.

[Jerome Stanek]

Open it up and unplug the video card and then plug it back in.

[Bryan Morgan]

Does it give any error beeps when it starts up?

Open the case and look on the motherboard for a little button or jumper called "CMOS Clear" or something similar. If its a button, hold it in for a little while. If its a jumper, move it to whatever pins it tells you to clear the cmos. Leave it there for a minute or so and then put it back where it started. I have this happen all the time, especially with power surges or drops.

Note: this will usually set your date and time back to whatever the default is for the system. Easily fixed by going into the bios setup (watch for a line that says press F10 or Del or whatever to enter setup when the computer starts) Also, if this is a custom built machine it may have some custom settings in the bios. If its an "off the shelf" box you shouldn't have to worry about it.

While you have the case open, make sure all the dust bunnies are blown out and you might want to press on all the RAM chips and cables to make sure its all connected good and tight.

[Chuck Wintle]

:( I went to power up our home PC last night and it wouldn’t boot. I can hear the cooling fan running but that’s it. There’s nothing happening on the monitor except it telling me that it’s going to sleep. Any suggestions before I unplug everything and take it in?
It's about 2 years old running XP.

a little more information is needed. When you say "its going to sleep" what exactly do you mean? My first guess is the power supply,, and after that the CPU or motherboard. What you can do on your part is to disconnect various connections...its possible a bad hard drive is to blame.