all right here is what happened, my grandmother and i decided that her computer was a little dusty so i helped her open it up and vaccum it out. i made sure she grounded her self before touching anything well in the process of vaccuming i took the heat sink out to vaccum underneath after a couple minutes of messing around with it i got it to snap back in. everything was cleaned and i reconnected the monitor keyboard and mouse. i pressed the power button and all i got was the orange hd light so i messsed around with the heatsink a little more and figured out that it was in all the way down after making sure it was connected i got both the green light and the orange light to come on but after a few seconds the green light shut off and it did this everytime all the fans come on and the mobo power light comes on as well but i dont think the harddrive is spinning. any tips or advice or maybe if anybody has had this problem and solved it would be greatly appreciated the pc is a desktop dell dimension 2400.
Once you take a heatsink off a CPU, you can't just put it back. You need to reapply some thermal compound. There are cheaper methods than this, but this is what I swear by: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100010 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007
Check the IDE cables one may be in backwards for the HDD. The red stripe faces te power connector on the HDD. The red stripe goes to the arrow or number 1 on the MB. -Del
a wrongly placed IDE cable shouldn't stop a PC booting, and more to the point, there's a notch, you shouldn't be able to plug it in wrong!
A backwards IDE will prevent a boot. IT will not even POST if the cable is backwards. You turn the system on, the fans will power, the lights come on but the system will not go into POST. Yes those are keyed now days but that does not mean people dont force things in or the mentioned system is old and does not have the notches on the IDE cable. Even the plugged cables can be forced in bakwards. (Meaning one block is filled in) -Del
del, it depends on the board whether it posts or not as i've seen some that post but not boot because ide cable is in reverse.
thanks guys i have checked all the ide cables and currently the computer is at a repair shop so i should find out in a few days what exactly the problem is.
