Old PC Won't Boot

[Alex C]

My girlfriend's mother's old Dell won't boot up anymore and she asked me to take a look at it. The power button will start up the fans and the hard drive, but it won't make it to BIOS and the monitor says there's no input. It doesn't turn off, it just sits there with the fans going, but never gets anywhere. It's an old Pentium 4, and I don't have any parts to swap out with it so I'm not really sure how to figure out what the trouble is. I opened it up, everything was connected as it should be. I removed the stick of RAM and the system acted the same without it as it did with it. Any ideas on what it might be or how to find out what's wrong?

 

[redbeard1]

What model is it?

It may have bulging capacitors on the motherboard.

 

[Alex C]

I'm not sure of the model, I'll check next time I'm there. What would the bulging capacitors look like?

 

[redbeard1]

Normal capacitors are flat on the top, with most having what looks like an X or a K pressed into the top of it, though some do not have these markings.

Bulged capacitors are domed on the top, with really bad ones actually leaking light brown gel on the top of it. Even the slightest dome on a single capacitor can cause a motherboard to fail, yet I have seen boards that had dozens leaking and it was still able to boot.

 

[Alex C]

Thanks, I'll check that out.

 

[Alex C]

I haven't made it over there yet to check on the capacitors, but the model is Gateway 500X PRB. What parts are essential to the PC posting? Can a bad hard drive or a virus prevent it from reaching the BIOS?