Dell Dimension 4700 won't boot

[raydarken]

Hi there, thanks for reading. A friends computer won't boot up, and here's what I know. For starters, the computer is an ancient Dell Dimension 4700, with a harddrive and ram having been upgraded years ago.

A fan in the case was stuttering for a few weeks now.

The computer kept getting BSOD when shutting down for a few weeks now.

When the computer boots, it won't post.

When the computer boots, one of its fans spins up really fast, then shuts off immidately. I'm having trouble figuring out which fan this is, but I think it's the PSU fan. This also happens when the computer is turned off again.

When I removed the memory and booted up the computer, it gave a "no memory" failure POST message. (so it's probably not a memory issue, or a dead motherboard)

When I removed the hard drive, it complained about there being no hard drive with POST beeps.

After booting (and not posting) the power supply light stays green, and the ABCD indicator lights on the back of the tower also stay green.

Despite all this, I can still boot in to an ubuntu live cd.

Okay, so from what I have been able to find out I'm thinking this might be a PSU issue, but if that were the case I would imagine a live cd wouldn't work? Any idea why this might be happening based on the information I provided?

Thanks for reading, any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[aford10]

It sounds like a PSU problem. There shouldn't be much difference in power requirements to boot a hard drive or off a CD. But it may be just enough. I would try swapping in a better PSU.

A hard drive isn't required to POST. You shouldn't get a beep code by unplugging the hard drive. You may want to look up that beep code to see what it was referring to.