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General discussion

My computer won't turn on.

Mar 12, 2005 3:41AM PST

Gateway
128 MB RAM
20 GB HDD
800 MHz Intel

I have a REALLY OLD Gateway that I have had for a little while, from my sister. It is one of othose mini ones, so I have the top off so I can fit my USB 2.0 card into the PCI slot (it's too tall to fit inside, with the top on). It's really weird in that when it is off, I have to turn it on, let it sit for a while (fans spinning, drives reading... LED = orange). I can then restart it after ten minutes or so, and the LED will turn green, and it will start up just fine. It is almost like warming up a car.
For this reason, I mostly leave my computer on all the time, unless I am leaving for a while (over the weekend, or something like that). I then unplug my stuff from the wall (stereo, computer, etc), so they can get a "rest," and so they can't catch fire, or something.
Well, I turned it off last night, to see how well I could sleep with it off, and when I woke up, I turned it on to let it warm up... I did some stuff in the BIOS, but nothing really that would mess anything up - I was just trying to see if I could stop it from doing whatever it was doing with the whole start up issue of warming up. I think I was able to do it before. Well, after I did that, I decided to mess with the password settings, and then I decided I wanted to cancel them, but for some reason I couldn't disable it. Lots of the settings were now gone out of the menu, so I turned the PC off, and took the battery out, so the BIOS would be reset. When I put the battery back in, I slipped, and accidentally tapped the board with it.
I pressed the power button, and nothing.
I don't think I fried the board, but I don't know.
Everything's plugged in, everything is fine. But when I press the button, I get nothing. I even tried touching the two power contacts on the board with a screw driver, to simulate pressing the power button, thinking maybe /it/ was faulty. Nothing.
THe hard drive works fine; I booted from it from a different computer (my stepfather's), but even with faulty drives, it should start up.
No fans, no electricity running through it.
What's up? Any clues?

Discussion is locked

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Same problem!
Mar 12, 2005 11:22PM PST

I don't know what the solution is, but I've had the same problem, and my computer isn't more than 6 months old. My sister also has the same problem with hers. It only seems to be when I completely shut down, and then try to immediately restart. If I choose "restart" in windows, it works just fine. Instead, when I shut down, and then turn it back on 10 seconds later, I get blinking lights and my CPU fan running on high, but nothing. It'll do that forever if I let it.

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re: Same problem!
Mar 13, 2005 9:48AM PST

The only problem is, now, it won't turn on at all. AT ALL. Which is kind of bad, considering I need it for different stuff. *sigh*
I guess for now, my stepfather's computer is all I can use.
No one has any suggestions for me, or perhaps for jab483? Hey, jab - what kind of computer do you have; Gateway?
Isn't that weird? It's not the hard drive... I wonder if it is the motherboard, or something in there?

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Reset
Mar 14, 2005 4:32AM PST

If the power supply has an on/off switch on the back of the case, try turning it off and wait a minute and turn it back on. Some of these power supplies will reset this way.

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re: reset the power supply
Mar 15, 2005 6:22AM PST

Unfortunately, there is no power switch on the back of the power supply. I thought of that, but it doesn't have one. I thought I had another power supply laying around somewhere, but apparently not (either that, or it's just buried).
Any other suggestions?

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power supply, light flicker
Mar 20, 2005 7:53PM PST

It may be worth something to note that whenever I plug the plug into the power supply, the lights flicker, as if I had turned something on (like a vacuum cleaner, etc).

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Check componets, closely
Mar 20, 2005 9:26PM PST

The slight "flicker" is only a momentarily power surge from the AC, heck it doesn't need much.

As for your problem, the best course of action is to swap or replace power supply. You can beforhand, at least check the capacitors on the mtrbd. if they in any way distorted, leaky, bulging, etc. they should look like each other, they do breakdown and/or result of a known bad source manufacturer. Also, older mtrbd. had a VRM area, where the power supplied was "controlled" to provide a steady power level and a componet can breakdown or burn-out and overall cause a shutdown or repeated power-UPs it gets picky. If this is an old system, yes its seen better days and the cost/time to repair maybe time to consider getting another system.

enjoy -----Willy Happy

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re: check componets, closely
Mar 27, 2005 12:51AM PST

Sounds like you know what you're talking about... would you say I'm having the same problem? Mine does eventually turn on, so it's a slightly different issue.

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re: check componets, closely
Mar 30, 2005 12:51AM PST

"Sounds like you know what you're talking about... would you say I'm having the same problem? Mine does eventually turn on, so it's a slightly different issue."

I know you are speaking to the other person, but mine has yet to turn on. I guess I will just have to figure something else out.
I am using my HDD to run Windows on this machine (my stepfather's), so as I've said, that's not the problem (I knew that anyway-hard drives don't cause start-up problems, or at least the kind that doesn't even turn on).
Maybe I can go to a flea market or something, and get an old computer for twenty bucks or something. But right now, and especially soon, I am not going to have much money /at all/.

But thanks to you all for helping me out... even if it didn't actually help; perhaps you can help the jab dude.

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re: Same problem!
Mar 14, 2005 6:43AM PST

I have a Compaq Presario, and my sister's computer is custom build by yours truly.