My spare PC died yesterday afternoon. Just refused to boot when turned on, and nothing new had been added, installed, etc, just a normal boot. There is no display on the monitor at all, but the PC powers up, hard drive activity, CD trays open and close, etc, but NO BEEPS. (Monitor works fine in other machine so its certainly the PC.)

Monitor fails to show any display at all on this machine on either the output from the video card I installed last year, or the original video chip on the mainboard output. Machine, although powers up, with hard drive activity, does not 'sound' as if its booting into Windows, just disk access briefly then nothing. Changed C drive....still nothing. Cant boot from CD ROM as no display on monitor at all, nothing....all power lights come on on front, CPU fan is on, and power unit fan.....

Machine is in daily use, or WAS in daily use for email and internet access and some video editing tasks...

Checked memory and all in firmly, and cant see any OBVIOUS problem. Its a 4 year old machine and not sure if its worth doing anything with, but I always like a working spare machine to hand.

What does anyone think. 4 year old celeron 2.0 machine, should I take it to a shop and get an estimate for repair, or does it sound like it has a major expensive problem.

I would try another graphics card if you have one laying around? Also hook it up to another monitor to rule out the display.

tried another monitor, no deal. Dont have any other graphics cards, but the built in video chip gives no output either...previously they both did as I had 2 monitors running last year.....

Cant be something like a CMOS battery could it? On a 4 yr old machine? Would that cause no beeps and nothing much to happen?

Switch it on, press caps lock and num lock keys. If the lights don't go on and off then it's either ram, processor or M/b. Most likely motherboard.
A final check is take the ram out, if it beeps then the board and processor are most likely fine and you RAM is stuffed. Still think it will be the motherboard. Have you disconnected the ATX power connector from the board, then reconnected it? Sometimes helps.

I hvae a brand new board you can have for a fiver, depending on what processor slot it is.
:)

Its a Celeron 2.0 CPU......not sure what socket that will be.....memory is PC 2700 so quite old board....

about to try the suggestions above.......already removed the RAM and tried it, no difference...

Switch it on, press caps lock and num lock keys. If the lights don't go on and off then it's either ram, processor or M/b. Most likely motherboard.
A final check is take the ram out, if it beeps then the board and processor are most likely fine and you RAM is stuffed. Still think it will be the motherboard. Have you disconnected the ATX power connector from the board, then reconnected it? Sometimes helps.

Tried that, no lights at all on keyboard......nothing......think it may be best for spares, 2 good DVD writers in it......

Do you have a spare power supply, if so try powering the board from that, an ATX style PSU powers up the board and then sends a PWR_OK signal on pin 8
(I think) to tell the board to start if that doesn't happen the power comes on but nothing happens

I had to sort a psu that was full of dust that powered up the board but didn't start the machine once, a different PSU sorted it

My compy does that about once every 6 months. All the power lights, cd has power, hd activity, fans run etc... but no display to the monitor. Usually I leave it powered off for an hour or so disconnected from the mains and when I power back up it takes me into BIOS to say my processor hung during the last boot up. I always have to leave it disconnected from the mains tho (or at least switch the psu off at the back) or else it never works.

if the psu fan spins up then it will be the motherboard. It could be the CPU but not very likely. one daft thing to try is disconenct the reset switch connector from the main board. Some old cases the reset button starts to stick, if it's stuck on then the psu will spin up but it will be in a permenent reset state! Not that likely but does happen.

You say the memory is in firmly, but have you actually removed the memory and refitted it? In many cases I find this cures the problem. If you have done that, then appologies.

if the psu fan spins up then it will be the motherboard. It could be the CPU but not very likely. one daft thing to try is disconenct the reset switch connector from the main board. Some old cases the reset button starts to stick, if it's stuck on then the psu will spin up but it will be in a permenent reset state! Not that likely but does happen.

the psu I had span up and had all the right voltages coming out it just didn't start the board, I replaced the mobo, cpu and ram before I thought of changing the PSU

nothing happened at all.....I dropped the unit into that PC repair shop in Hillsborough, VERY PC, for a diagnostic....anyone used them before? They seemed very helpful.....

Motherboard.
bet ya.
:)

probably is bit it's worth trying a different PSU if you got one before buying a new mobo