Just bought a company's old computer, without a OS installed. Arrived without a hard drive, they sent me the 80 gig hard drive that should have come with it. Installed it, installed XP Pro and used the COA that came with the comp. Everything went fine, ran like a champ; until about a week later. Now it attempts to start and spins the fan for a few seconds, then goes back to a red light blinking on the power button. Internal green LED is lit, and the only mod I made was adding an internal wireless N card from rosewill. Also, the day that I gave this as a present, was the day that it downloaded that classic virus that sends you to this website to purchase virus blocker! I was thrilled. Any ideas you have will prevent me from going bald. Thanks Here is what it came with: Processor P4HT 2.8ghz memory (RAM) 1024mb hard drive 80GB formatted network 10/100 base modem not included ports parallel, serial, USB port 4 on back 2 in front onboard video and sound Sound Stereo sound Included Computer and power cord not included keyboard mouse and operating system COA XP PRO

Sounds like a hardware problem. Take anything out that was added recently and try to start it up mainly the wireless card. Jim R

Tried that already, didn't do anything. Worked for a little over a week with the wireless card in it.

You listed all the specs but the PSU (power supply). A PSU can go bad but still put out enough juice to spin a few fans or light up some LEDs. To troubleshoot, strip the system down to the bare minimum. Unplug the power & data cables from all drives (floppy, optical & HDD). Unplug all cooling fans except for the motherboard chipset & CPU fans. Unplug all external devices except the keyboard & monitor. Remove all RAM except for one stick. Remove all cards but video. Now see if you can bootup & access the BIOS. If not, unplug the power cord & reset the BIOS using the clearCMOS jumper. Plug the power cord back in & try again. Still nothing? See if you can borrow a PSU from somewhere & try again.

Thanks I'll be sure to try that when I get home...just in case, what is a clearCMOS jumper? I know it's a newbie question, but I am what I am.

Ok, so I'm confused as anything right now. I did like you said, pulled everything but the basics and it started up fine. I got into BIOS and everything, still working. I figure ok, I have no clue what to do. So I put it all back together and now it's running fine. What the heck does that mean??? Was it a virus, or is it the PSU getting ready to go? I'm definitely confused