Dimention 4100 start problem

Question

Hello, I have two dimension PC's and they both have the same fault. The 4100 is the one I'm more interested in getting working as it belongs to a friend. When the PC started to go wrong is when the hard drive died, but even with the HDD disconnected the BIOS would still do its thing until it displayed the error saying there's no HDD. I moved it from there house to mine( two doors away) and now I can turn it on using the power button at the front and the fans kick in the CD drives do there thing the LED's on the motherboard light up but there is no life from the new hard drive and the monitor power LED flashes to say the PC is switch off. Some times on power up the PC will give three alarm peeps. Can anyone suggest a fix or dose any one have any idea of what's going wrong.   Cheers   G

BigBrother · Answer

The G,   If your beep code is 1 short and 2 longer beeps, this points to a video card issue.  It is possible that the video card was loosened in it's slot when the computer was being moved.  Open the case and re-seat the video card.    If the beeps are the same length, this points to a problem with RAM.  it is also possible that one or both of the memory modules came loose when the computer was being moved.  Open the case and re-seat the memory modules.   The Dimension 4100 has another very useful diagnostic feature -- the diagnostic LEDs on the back of the system.  They are labelled ABCD and can be found just below the parallel printer connector on the back of the computer.  They are labelled #2 on the image at this link:   http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dzuul/controls.htm#back_panel   These LED's are all green during normal system operation.  Any one of them can be off, green or yellow.  To use them to help diagnose your system's problem, check the pattern that they display against the table at this link:   http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dzuul/codemess.htm#diagnostic_codes   Steve

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