COMPUTER ALL OF A SUDDEN WON'T START

[feltz]

My computer suddenly won't start up at all.  I have no idea what the problem is.  It's an older computer with an older athlon processor and 768 RAM.  I run windows XP on it.

When I turn the computer on, I hear it making noise and the fan running and all that, but the monitor does not recognize that the computer is on.  The monitor power light just blinks, like it does when the computer power is totally off.  Likewise, the mouse and keyboard don't light up at all. 

Before the problem, I had noticed that the monitor would sometimes blink when I would open files or programs.  It had done this for awhile, but even more frequently recently.  Dunno if this is related to the current problem.

I have no idea what is wrong, but I would at least like to save what I have on the hard drive, if possible.  PLEASE HELP!!!

[ChrisXPPro]

Initially two things come to mind - just guessing.

First - could be your PSU has a fault, there are several voltages delivered - maybe check with a meter to see what it is delivering.  Fan running may not itself be enough proof of an OK PSU.  Can you hear HDD spinning up or see the HDD light showing activity?

Second, is a major mobo failure.  Doesn't sound like you are getting even into BIOS.  How old is ''older"?

You may have to access HDD by an external enclosure and lift data onto another machine... or add drive as a secondary in another PC.

Can't think right now of a totally simple answer - tho I am sure you wish it to be so.

[BC_Programmer]

do you get a beep from the computer when you start it, or just fan noise?

[feltz]

No, I'm not getting anything at all.  The machine was built ten years ago, but has always worked well.

There is no beep, just noise from the fan and it sounds like some general "thinking" noise is coming from elsewhere, but it's hard to tell exactly.

Is it difficult to plug the hard drive into another computer to see if it works?  Obviously I'm no expert, but is it something a novice could do pretty easily?

Also, thanks for helping!

[ChrisXPPro]

That's a pretty old machine and PSU is still my first choice for fault, mobo second.

If you have a spare machine with a spare EIDE connector on mobo (and only one HDD) - then you should be able to set up your old HDD but set jumper to make it slave and make sure other is master.  It should then be seen hopefully, altho I suspect it may be FAT32 and not NTFS but don't think that should matter.

If machine you want to use is SATA then perhaps go with an external enclosure to suit and hook up via USB.  With luck Win will ''see'' it and also hopefully ascribe a drive letter.

[feltz]

Cool, I guess I'm most worried about the hard drive, so I will look into that first.  As for the machine itself, maybe its time to start over with something a hair newer.  I'm just glad you don't think it is the hard drive itself cuz I have alot of documents and things that I did not back up.

Thanks for the tips!

[patio]

Now is the time to start concentrating on a regular backup strategy...
Acronis True Image is my choice and comes highly recommended arouind these parts...

[EntityX]

When ChrisXPPro suggests that your PSU is very likely your problem I would have to agree. He is referring to the Power Supply Unit. I answered a post a couple days back about checking a power supply out. Instead of repeating myself here's the link.

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,62352.0.html
Take a look at my entry at the bottom.

If your hard drive goes bad I've heard that there is a service that can recover the data off the drive for you.

From what you've said I think that it wouldn't be a bad time to move to a new computer. If the power supply is bad it might be a sign that you should get a new computer though you could no doubt fix your present one.