Dell Dimension 4600 won't power up {Resolved}
I'm helping a friend diagnose a problem with his PC. His Dell Dimension 4600 won't power up. When I take the cover off the case, I can see the green LED lit on the Motherboard. However, when I press the power-on button, absolutely nothing happens (No lights, no fans, no drives spinning)
What I've tried so far:
- Verify all the cables are securely in place.
- Removed all drives and cards.
- Removed 1 of 2 memory sticks, then switched them.
- Connected a wire to pins 13 and 14, plugged in power cord, and the power supply fan started spinning.
- Connected a multimeter to the Power Supply plug, and got readings on Pins 9 and 14 only.
Now for the strange part, with everything plugged in and just sitting there (while I was working on something else at my desk), the PC acted like it was starting to power-up. The lights/fans/drives all came on for a split second and then went off. After about 10-15 seconds, it repeated. It kept doing this for several minutes until I pressed the power button for about 6 seconds, and then it stayed powered off.
The problem appeared out of the blue. They shut it down normally on a Friday, went out of town for a couple of days, and when they returned on Sunday... nothing!
I don't have a spare power supply laying around. I'm willing to buy one if there is a reasonable chance that the power supply is bad. So, what do you think? ... Is it most likely the Power Supply, Motherboard, or something else?
Thanks,
Rick
My Dell 4600 is running again. Thanks!
I wanted to thank everyone for their help. My Dell 4600 would not power up after being 2 years old. I read this link online and suspected it was the power supply. I bought a Antec 500W power supply at Comp USA since it was on sale for 50$ after rebate. I then tried to test the voltages as suggested on this forum at http://www.ochardware.com/articles/p.../psuvolt2.html. I was disappointed to see that the voltages were all fine. I thought maybe I had too many hard drives connected since I have 3 hard drives (although it worked fine before). I unplugged two of the non OS drives and the computer still did not power up. So then I thought it was the power switch. So I disconnected it and connected it to an ohmeter and the switch worked. So now I thought I was in trouble. I felt it may be the motherboard but the motherboard still had the little green light on which I have some people call the "flea" light. Since I did not want to spend the money on a new motherboard, I decided just to try replacing the power supply anyway since I read somewhere that someone still had the "flea" light on and replacing the power supply worked. It took me about 45 minutes to replace the power supply mainly because the Antec 500W power supply was larger than the original power supply and I had to crowd the wires together to make it fit between the power supply and the back of the CD-ROM. I was so glad when I powered it up and the computer started running. I was just surpised that the old power supply still had the right voltages but still did not work. Anyways, I wanted to thank everyone for their help. :)