Inspiron 530 Solid Blue Light, Fans, Disk whir, No beep, No BIOS display - can anyone please advise?

RB126

Those are excellent troubleshooting procedures you performed.

As there are no 'beeps', there could be a motherboard issue/failure.

Did you remove and replace the memory modules, to see if this made a difference?

No difference, try the following, if you are comfortable working around computers:

Note: The only 100% method of testing a PSU, is to install a known working power supply.

Unplug the cord from the power supply, hold the power button in for about 15/20 seconds, open the case, unplug the 24-pin power connector from the motherboard and jump the Green wire to one of the Black wires, reconnect the power cord and power the system, if power supply, case fans and the hard drive run, then the PSU should be good.

Note: Do not remove any wires from the plug, use a small piece of wire or a paper clip as a jumper.

Power supply checks out, again disconnect the power cord, hold the power button in again for 15/20 seconds to discharge the residue power, reconnect the 24-pin connector to the motherboard.

Remove all PCI cards from the system, take out the video card [if applicable], disconnect all peripherals, except the monitor, mouse and keyboard and disconnect the power & data cables from all drives.

Reconnect the power cord and power system on, see if you get a different LED indication on the power button, or 'Beeps'.

No difference, remove the memory from the system and try again.

Still shows no signs of life then you are looking at a motherboard replacement & maybe a processor.

Note: The good news is, processors rarely fail, as the only method I know of checking a processor, is to install it a compatible working PC, or use a known working processor.

Bev.

Bev, thanks so much - really helpful and much appreciated.  I'll follow your steps!

Hi Bev,

Thanks again for your assistance!

OK, I tried your first suggestion - unplugged 24-pin power connector, jumped the green to black with paperclip (after looking up what that does first - it seems it's "PS_ON" to ensure PSU is on).

Just wanted to double check:  I was supposed to jump those pins and leave the 24-pin connector disconnected from the motherboard, correct?

Upon turning on the power at the wall, the PSU fan sped up and then dropped back to a very quiet low speed over the course of about 2s, green PSU LED was on.  No other fans (case or CPU) turned on at all.  Pressing the PC's soft power button had no effect (presumably because motherboard was unpowered).

Am I right in thinking this means my PSU is the culprit and not (necessarily also) the motherboard?  If so that;'s good news and I can go out and find a replacement 350W PSU.  Or did I do this test incorrectly?

Thanks!

Richard

RB126

Yes, it is possibly, but it could also be, both the PSU and the motherboard, as I posted, the only 100% method of checking a PSU, is by installing a 'known' working unit.

Try connecting the 24-pin connector to the motherboard, with the 'jumper' on to see what happens.

You need a known working PSU to check the motherboard.

 Unfortunately, while you to can make an informed diagnosis, many times computer troubleshooting, is diagnostics by substitution.

I've tried switching from ATI Radeon HD 3650 via DVI to built-in VGA port and still nothing,

If I may...

When you switched to using the onboard VGA port, had you removed the add-in video card? The onboard video ports are disabled when an add-in card is installed. So unless you removed the add-in card first, that wasn't a valid test... :emotion-5: