Waffle

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so title pretty much sums it up - I have a gateway, its just over 2 years old now, and it wont turn on
when i turn on the surge protector and hit the power button on the pc it turns orange (when it was working it would turn green) and then it just sits there and does nothing. i tried turning it on and off for an hour or so before finally giving up. a friend of mine thinks my power supply might be dead b/c i never turn it off. i opened up the case and there was a test button and a light on the power supply, i pushed the button and the light didnt come on, but before i go out and buy a new one i was just wondering if anyone knows about this stuff
thanks~

Juana!

are the fans working? can you check with an amp/voltimeter if you are getting juice? had the same prob with a Hp a time ago.. never knew the cause but it always came on after disconecting the power cord and let it sit for a couple of hours.. hibernation issues maybe (because orange light)? need more info te get a better idea...

I have never turned off my computers at home... besides the above .. never had problem with power supply...

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Ryan

could be a hibernation thing, but it's possible that orange light means something more important. Check the owners manual that came with the computer, and see if there are "LED codes" or something. Most motherboards have different ways of alerting the user that there is a problem. This could be anything from the motherboard being fried, the bios gone, the ram unseated or dead, or many other things. It is hard to diagnose without actually seeing it, but the manual may help.

Do the fans spin at all? When you push the button, does ANYTHING happen besides the orange light?

-Ryan

Waffle

i think the fans are working, but im not sure, ive let this sit for about a week because ive been busy w/ school. i can check next time i go home, and i might have a friend w/ a voltimeter, maybe ill try to get that going
i didnt actually disconnect the power cord but i turned off the surge protector and let it sit for a few days and tried it again but no dice
i was having this problem the 2 times i restarted before it died, it would take me 5ish min to get it back on, but when it died it was running and then just turned off and wouldnt come back
when i was having problems restarting it also looked like it was trying to read the cdrw drive, altho nothing was in there, but i dont know if thats related or not
EDIT: nothing really happens when i hit power except the orange light, sometimes when i turn it off the cdrw drive light flashes a couple times before the power goes off
edit2: i checked the manual, i didnt notice anything about led codes but i can look again

tubaman

Try this. Disconnect cables between motherboard and cdrom's, and hard drives. Turn power on, and if they spin up, then chances are your motherboard is bad. I've had one computer that when cables were hooked up, the hard drive wouldn't spin, and the CD's wouldn't open. Once I disconnected the cables, the drives spun and opened normally. If they are connected to power only, and won't spin, or open, then it's probably your power supply. They're cheap though, I'm thinking 30 bucks or so. I've got 3 laying around myself, out of old IBM's. One can be yours if you want it. Mobo's are a different story though. I've seen them anywhere from $40-$200.

Ryan

schutzenkonig

My brother recently had a problem with a bad power supply, but unfortunantly it can cause the motherboard to go bad as well. My pc wouldn't load the OS 2 days ago, and I found out the hard drive had failed. But that problem, it will turn on, but then just quit while trying to load the OS.

yawn

Can cause, not definately though. I had a problem last week where my computer would suddenly shut off or reset and then would not turn back on until I unplugged it from the wall then plugged it back in regardless of where I was. I could have been in the BIOS or running a Linux kernel or in Win XP, it would just shut off. Replaced the power supply and didn't have a problem since then. They can be a little expensive as a test to see if that's the real problem, but if you are pretty sure, I'd say go for it.

Waffle

just to update, i replaced the power supply and my pc is working again, thanks for all the advice~

Juana!

cool... have fun

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Waffle

well i spoke too soon i guess
after getting the pc running, i left my house some time early in the afternoon and left it on. i returned around 3am and posted that it was working. i had also checked out my stuff, and it didnt look like i had lost any of my files.
i woke up the next morning and it was dead again. once again the orange light was on on the ON button instead of the green that should be on when its working. also, it was trying to read the cd rw drive for some reason. i noticed that the power supply's fan wasnt running at all. i dont think that my surge protector killed it b/c i have other stuff hooked up to it (speakers, external hard drive) and they still seem to work. so if anyone has any ideas whats killing my power supplies, id appreciate it.
thanks~

Waffle

ok this is getting really wierd
im posting right now from my computer and it seems to be working. what happened was i came home and decided to play with the pc
first i tried turning it on, it didnt come on but i noticed that the fan on the mother board was spinning
i turned it off
then i tried unplugging one of my internal hard drives (the one without windows on it) from the motherboard and turing it on, and the unplugged hard drive started spinning
then i plugged that hard drive back into the mother board and tried unplugging the other one (my C drive). at this point i was convinced that my motherboard was dead but i decided to see if the drive would spin anyway just to make sure. thats where it started to get wierd. when i turned on the computer it actually turned on, but of course wouldnt start up b/c the hard drive with windows wasnt plugged in
i disconnected the other hard drive from the power and mother but kept the C drive pulgged into the power so i could hear it spin. it did spin but it sounded kinda wierd. it was kinda like the difference in sound when a saw is on (my hard drive without windows) and when a saw is actually sawing a piece of wood(my c drive), if that makes any sense.
so anyway i plugged everything back in and tried turing it on. i got to a black screen that said NTLDR is missing, press ctrl+alt+del to restart. i restarted and presto my computer booted up and everything.
now my hard drives seem to sound fine, i cant see anything out of the ordinary really, but given all the trouble ive had i still have to wonder if theres something seriously wrong with my computer. if you got this far, i appreciate it~