PC won't boot up

I had an old Dell 486/66 that I rarely used. After several months sitting it wouldn't boot up either. A friend suggested I change the cmos batteries, and viola - problem solved.

This may not be a cure your ailment, but it sure resolved mine.Hope this helps!
Belinda

if the cmos battery has gone than your machine does not know its hardware configuration - so you need to go into BIOS and check the hard disk, floppy etc are correct. Then until the battery is replaced keep your machine on or the settings will be lost.

Try receding all the hardware, the cables for floppy and hd. You should see the memory count or check being ok. The computer should boot from boot disk (ensure it is a boot disk that works on another computer). If you cannot boot from floppy than you need to check the cable and settings for floppy.

Good luck

Ive had a few 486's and Pentium 75's do this to me. Usually it is either the cmos battery as mentioned above, or it is the power supply itself. Check to see if the fan is still working on your power supply. If not, then replace the power supply.

Another possible problem is that the hard drive is faulty and is causing the computer to hang. If the CMOS thing didnt work, try disconnecting the hard drive and booting off diskette.

Phil, It sounds like your system board may have bit the dust. Try removing all the perpherals (ie keyboard, mouse, I/O cards, IDE cables, floppy cables, cache modules, ect). All you should have connected is a system board and video adapter. If the problem does not change, remove the video card,connect the floppy cable and watch the light on the floppy drive. If the drive light lights, the problem is your video card. If the problem persists, it is either your P/S, simm module, or motherboard. The P/S can be ruled out 95% by using a meter. That would leave the mobo or the simm. You can try the simm in another machine (if you have that luxury). If I had to buy both the remaining two components, I would go for the memory first as the POST lastdisplay is memory based. Hope this helps

Kindly disable the shadow ram and try reboot it. See whether this could indicate your RAM
is having problem. Also you could reseat your
battery, CPU fan, CPU, RAM, cables and CMOS/BIOS chip to see this solve the booting problem.

Hard drives have about 5 year life and it could be that your hard drive has gone out. You might try to boot from a floppy without the hard drive in it. If it boots then it could very well your hard drive. You could try (AT LAST OPTION!!!) I repeat (LAST OPTION) take your hard drive out and give it a good bang flat on the desk and put it back in and try to boot. If your hard drive is less than 4 years I would not suggest this because it is probably not the problem.

Good luck!

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