Bad Power Supply ?

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 12:44 PM

I ahve a friend who has brought me his Dell Dimension 2400 Desktop to work on after getting it back from the local PC shop worse than it was when he left it.

Now, it will not boot up. The CPU fan runs, the NIC LEDs blink, and even the power supply's fan runs, but that's about it. If you press the button to eject the CD tray, nothing happens. The monitor light remains yellow.

I know that is very little info but my assumption,. since the CD tray won't eject, is that it is due to a bad power supply.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,

Jeff

**NooNoo** · November 19th, 2008, 12:55 PM

Does it have a floppy drive? If so, disconnect it.

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 12:58 PM

Thanks for the quick reply!

There is no floppy drive. There are TWO CD-ROM drives and only one of those has it's power LED on {green}-the other does not. Neither will open.

Thank You,

Jeff

**NooNoo** · November 19th, 2008, 01:00 PM

Power led is on... therefore ide cable is on backwards... pull the cable and try and boot without it.

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 03:17 PM

Unplugging the IDE cable to the CDROM will make the hard drive activity light turen on and stay green. Plugging the IDE cable OR power cable to the CDROM makes the hard drive activity light turn off.

OK....the "Power" light to the left of the On/Off button is orange....hard drive activity light is on and green with the power diconnected from the CDROM {s}.

Jeff

**NooNoo** · November 19th, 2008, 03:21 PM

Does the machine beep?
Disconnect all drives (power and ide cable) - will it boot then?

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 03:25 PM

If I disconnect both CDROM drives and the hard drive, both IDE and power, the main power light on the tower flashes orange with no beep. I thought I migtht at least get a BIOS screen. The light for my monitor stays orange. I have had some where the monitor light woulf go from green to orange but this one never goes green.

Thank You!

Jeff

**NooNoo** · November 19th, 2008, 03:37 PM

Right if it doesn't beep, try removing the RAM and boot it, then try removing the video card (if any). Oh, but make sure the case speaker is attached!

**slgrieb** · November 19th, 2008, 04:17 PM

Even if you just do a little casual PC troubleshooting, it's worth spending $20 or so on a power supply tester. In the field, I carry a Rexus that has an LED readout for the main power connector, rise time for the Power Good signal, and readouts of SATA, PCI-E connectors, 12 V connectors to the mainboard, 4-pin Molex, and floppy power connectors. Unit includes audible alarms for low/over voltage states in addition to the numerical readouts. To use it, you disconnect the power supply from the mainboard and any drives, etc. connect the main plug to the tester, and test one connection at a time. And, before you read some uninformed reviews, the -5V circuit hasn't used in years.

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 04:39 PM

If I remove the RAM and reboot, the CPU fan does not run and there is no beep.

If I leave the RAM in and reboot with the IDE cable to the CDROM {the 2nd CDROM has both IDE and power disconnected} and the power the power disconnected, there is no beep and the power LED on the front is orange steady with the hard drive activity light staying a steady green. If I then plug the power to the CDROM, the green HD activity light goes out.

IN no scenario is the Power LED on the front green. It is always orange.

Thanks everyone for your help so far. It's been a heck of a day. The networking crew has strung over 30K feet of cable in the last week, part of my network is down in our manufacturing facility, and the hard drive just failed in a unit. I am working 16 hour days today and Thursday.

Thanks for the help!

Jeff

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 04:41 PM

I forgot to mention....the video is onboard. The only card on in the box is the NIC.

Jeff

**MobilePCPhysician** · November 19th, 2008, 05:07 PM

Do a bios reset. Then try another power supply. Do you see any bulging capacitors on the mainboard???

**Farrar** · November 19th, 2008, 06:09 PM

I tried the BIOS reset with no luck. I see no bulging capacitors on the MB. I'll see if I have a simalar power supply. This is a Dell Dimension 2400. We mostly have Optiplex models here so I'll check to see if a power supply from one will match up as I have no spares.

Thanks,

Jeff