In need of some hardware expertise here. I have my old computer, which is where all my old files live. I had been using it as a file dump/backup right up until it ran out of hard disk space.
Since I got this fancy new network-enabled drive (it's little more than a compact file server really, it's literally a Linux system with a file share and a web server for setting it up) I've been throwing everything there instead. So the time came to take all the old work files and send them there too.
Because I used this computer less and less often, at some point it decided to no longer start up immediately. As of today, the last time I turned it on was on friday. And before that, sometime in January. When I turn it on, nothing happens. Lights and fans go on, but nothing happens. No post, no output at all from the video card. The monitor sits there blinking its LED waiting for a video signal.
Normally, after turning it off and back on a few times, it finally starts up. On friday, I had left it on this idle state for several hours wondering if it needed to charge the battery to be able to start up, and it did work. However I tried the same yesterday without success. Leaving it on all day didn't make a difference.
Has anybody here had this experience before?
Look for fat caps, a voltage converter could be blown. My usual suspicion when there is power but no post.
I'd maybe try reseating some stuff as well, like the RAM and the CMOS battery.
If this doesn't help, then I think it's the motherboard (like rufee says).
Your computer is pretty old, SugarMan; I won't be surprised if that'd happen to me.
I don't see why the motherboard would be fried for no reason, especially considering it turned on just fine three days ago.
[update]Fuck it. My dad let me borrow his desktop so I brought it in and I'm going to do it the hard way. Gonna get done with it as fast as I can, because Windows Vista.
[update2]I'll need one of those SATA to USB things. Vista thinks the hard drive is invalid.