Late 2009 Dell Inspiron 530 won't start.

[shanejain]

My late 2009 Dell Inspiron stopped starting normally when I pressed the power button. I would hear the fans go on, and the hard drive start moving, but then everything would go silent. After checking all my power cables and returning to the machine, it booted normally. In the night, I don't turn off my computer, so I was surprised when it was off the next day, and further astonished when it did not start up normally. Like the previous day, after some wrangling of the cables the machine somehow started. This happened for two more days and I repeated the same procedure every morning. Today, however, the machine simply stopped working. No fans or drives made noise, and after messing with the power cables, the machine still did not turn on. I did some research online, and found that many other people had similar problems. On the back of the machine there is a green light which would light up whenever the main power cable was connected. Inside the machine, on the motherboard, there is a amber, yellow light that was constantly lit as long as the 24 pin ATX cable was connected. Based on my research, I found out that the power button must have been at fault. I bypassed the button using a paper clip as a jumper wire, but the computer did not start. When I disconnected the 24 pin ATX cable from the motherboard and repeated the bypass, the hard drives and fans for the power supply unit started. Also, the bypass connection should only be a couple seconds long, like holding down the power button for some time. In my case, whenever it as held down the drives started, and as soon as I let go, they stopped. This procedure showed me that the problem was in the power switch, but it doesn't explain why the bypass did not work when the motherboard was connected. I am looking for a temporary solution to powering on the computer, because the machine will be replaced by this time next year.

Thanks for looking at this question, and thanks for helping me.

 

[utgotye]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Enter.png

Try using that and reposting.

 

[Saberus]

Power supply is failing. It's in limp-mode and continuing to force it could kill your system completely. It may have already caused damage.

 

[krosenhamer]

It's definitely the power supply giving up. The jump wire is a bad idea both for you and for what's left of your computer. Backup all of your important data and replace the computer as soon as you can. Don't be too surprised if it just won't turn on one day.