Member Avatar for kevinpovec

when i got home from work, my computer was turned off and the light was glowing orange. (i have an old pentium 4 2ghz gateway. cant find specifics on the model etc...).

i would try to boot up the computer and nothing, i mean nothing at all was happening.

i thought it may be a bad power supply, so i put a new one in. the power supply was indeed bad, but that didnt fix the problem.

the pwer light still glows orange, but when i attempt to boot, i canhear the cpu fan and the hard drives whirring about. but i still dont get anything in the way of booting up. nothing at all shows on the screen, i get no beep codes from the motherboard.

i'm pretty sure the hard drive is good. its relatively new and i only have a laptop, so i can't throw it in there to check it, but i'm not worried about it anyways....

any ideas?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by lasher511

Dani AI

Generated

A concise troubleshooting plan for the symptom described by (amber/orange power LED, fans and drives spin, no video and no beeps). 's suggestions about video, 12V feed and surge protection are relevant — below are focused, ordered checks and safe tests to narrow the fault quickly.

  • Verify the display path first: try the monitor and cable on a known-good machine or swap in a known-good cable/adapter. Confirm the monitor input selection (VGA/DVI).
  • Do a minimal "bench" POST: power the board outside the case on a non-conductive surface with only CPU, one stick of RAM, motherboard power connectors, and the video output (use onboard video if present). Remove HDDs, optical drives and extra cards.
  • Ensure a system speaker is connected so you can hear POST beeps. If none are present, lack of beeps can be misleading.
  • Reseat RAM (try each stick in each slot), reseat the video card, and reseat power connectors (24/20-pin and the 4/8-pin CPU 12V). Check for bent pins, loose clip, burned pins or arcing marks.
  • Clear CMOS (jumper or remove the battery for several minutes) to rule out BIOS corruption.

Also perform a visual inspection with the PSU unplugged: look for bulging/leaky capacitors, scorch marks, or damaged VRM components (common on older P4 boards). If the PSU rails check out but the board still refuses to POST during bench-testing, the motherboard (or less commonly the CPU) is the likely failure. Use a cheap POST-card or a PSU-tester/multimeter if available. Take electrostatic precautions and do not run the system long if there is a burning smell. If repair is not practical for an older Gateway board, data recovery can be handled by removing the drive and connecting it to another computer or a USB-to-SATA adapter.

Member Avatar for lasher511

Just curious how you worked out the old PSU was broken?

Sounds like you may have had a power surge or something like it while u were out. Try putting a new video card in there as well. It could acctually be getting all the way into windows when you turn it on and you heard all the fans start up only that you cannot see thats going on. Also depening on how old your computer is make sure that you have you 12V power going into the motherboard as well as the main power. This can also be the cause of no picture.

The last thing that i can think of off the top of my head is that if it was a surge then your monitor may have been taken out at the same time as the PSU and that is why you have no picture.

See if you can pick yourself up a decent surge protector to plug your power board into. i have a Belkin one worth about $20AU that i got free with my new monitor which has a $100000 lifetime parts warranty on it meaning that if a surge frys anything that plugged into that surge protector they will replace it up to $100000 or if the surge protector dies saving your equipment then they will replace it with a new one for free.

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