Dell pc turns off

[harveybham]

my friend has given me his dell machine to look out.

basically i used it to sign onto msn today worked fine for 20 mins and then the monitor says no signal the keyboard failes to work no lights appear and the mouse goes dead, the pc aint on sleep as i checked all that and also you cant do anything.

their is one thing from the time it says no signal three beeps occur on the machine. so at this point i turn the pc off and start it again the three beeps occur again and the fan does not stop blowing it just contiues very fast.

for example now i put it on it beeps 6 times and the fan keeps increasing until it settles down but even now it is blowing hard and the pc dont wanna come on. what could it be ?

 

[herbs]

3 beeps can mean a graphics card problem, which the lack of signal also supports. Is it a card or is it onboard? Try re seating it. Is there a lot of dust/fluff in the PC?

 

[biffo1]

Yep Ill Second That If Its On Borad Get Another Grathics Card And Then Disable Onboard Graphics In Ya Bios, If It Isnt On Board Try Another Graphics Card Mate , Quite Easy To Install
Regards Biffo

 

[harveybham]

my mistake it is 6 beeps i took the psu out and disconnected it all and tried the pc again and it worked. could it be a power supply problem i can verify it is 6 beeps and NOT 3

 

[MH]

Dells are totally different from other pc's when it comes to fault finding.

There is 4 usb lights A B C and D, these lightup and flash depending on the fault.

 

[jiff]

can you try running the dell diagnostic utilities to see what it finds ?
they're usually installed on the hdd (use the boot menu to run them) or you can run them from a dell utility cd.

 

[MN2005]

How old is this..and is it a GX270..? Dell have bought a bad batch of capacitors..I have already looked at 2 ell systems with the same fault. You can go inot the bios and read the details of why it shut down. If it mentions thermal issues, then I`m pretty sure the capacitors are shot. Do a google search for "fat capacitors"

 

[eviltwin]

what dell system is it?

looking around on google i found this

Short beep - System is operating normally.
1 Long beep - Memory refresh circuitry has failed which indicates a problem with the motherboard. Try reseating the memory DIMM or SIMM modules. Make sure if you have added memory that it is rated at the correct speed for the system.
1 Long 2 Short beeps - The video adapter has failed, or the video memory is having a read/write failure. Try reseating the video card. If the video card is a PCI video card, try moving it to another slot.
1 Long 3 Short beeps - The system does not detect a monitor. Verify that the monitor cable is properly attached to the video card or the onboard video and to the monitor (if the monitor has a detachable cable). If possible, try another monitor on the system to verify that the video adapter is operating properly.
2 or 3 beeps - There is a problem with the system’s memory. Reseat the memory DIMM or SIMM modules.
4 beeps - This indicates a non-functional timer. This indicates a problem with the motherboard.
5 beeps - This indicates a CPU (Central Processing Unit or processor) failure. Try reseating the processor.
6 beeps - This indicates a keyboard controller failure. Try reseating the keyboard connector.
7 beeps - Another indication of a processor problem. Reseat the processor.
8 beeps - This indicates a video memory read/write failure. Reseat the video card (if any) and memory DIMM or SIMM modules.
9 or 10 beeps - This indicates a ROM (Read-Only Memory) checksum error or shutdown register failure. This indicates a defective BIOS chip(s). Reseat the BIOS chips.
11 beeps - Indicates an error in the cache memory. If the system has a Pentium class processor, reseat the processor. If the system has a cache memory module, try reseating it. These beep codes will vary depending on the system