Hey, ive had my acer aspire for about 3 months now and its worked pefectly. but i just brought it to my brothers house and plugged it in, it acts like its working but it doesnt display anything and doesnt beep like it normally does at the post screen. Ive tried removing my video card and using the onboard and ive taken out my 3 sticks of ram and tried using just 1 of them, tried all of the sticks one by one and nothing. im starting to think it could be the psu but im not sure. recently everytime my pc would go into sleep mode, when it came out of sleep mode it would stay dark and i could barely see the screen, so i would have to reboot and it would be fine again. not sure if that would have anything to do with the psu or not or the video card or just windows itself. just wondering if anyone knew what may becauses it to not boot, i doubt its the motherboard. when i turn it on, the led lights go on, the cpu/video card heatsink fans spin, the cd rom wont open. Thanks for any advice you can give me.

If you don't get the normal single beep, that means the motherboard/CPU is not working. Even though you see somes signs of power, the odds are that the power supply has failed. The power supply has to supply several voltages, and a single one missing can cause a problem.

Moving a computer can loosen components and/or connections, especially if it experiences physical jostling. Make sure all components and connections are properly seated. ATX mboards are always powered in some places as long as live AC is being supplied to the PS (and the PS is switched on if it has a switch), regardless of whether the computer is running. You must remove the AC power to the PS whenever you install or remove any connection or component that plugs into the mboard or the PS connectors inside the case, otherwise you may damage something. E.g. Merely plugging in or unplugging a power connection to a drive can damage the PS circuits. Did you do that, every time? What's the make and model of the PS? Brand name computers often come with PS that has a minimal capacity. If the video card didn't come with the computer, are you sure the PS has at least the minumum capacity to handle it's current (amperage) needs? If it doesn't, the power supply will fail eventually even if it works fine at first. The minimum PS capacity is often stated in the specs for the video card on the card manufacturer's web site. Is it possible the computer experienced a power outage or power disturbance that caused a power spike or surge, and/or were there any lightning strikes in your area since it last worked properly? Is your computer and everything that plugs into AC power that connects to it, and the cable that connects it to the internet, plugged into something that protects against power spikes and surges? Lightning strikes can do random damage even if you do have such protection. "when i turn it on, the led lights go on, the cpu/video card heatsink fans spin,..." Failing power supplies are common and can cause your symptoms. Check your PS. They often partially work, fans and hard drives spin, leds come on, yet you get no video and the mboard will not boot all the way. See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... I've seen some failing PSs that were - producing no +5v - in that case, the optical and floppy drives cannot work, and the USB, PS/2, and Serial ports cannot work. I've seen systems where the hard drives still worked despite that situation. - produced too much of what was supposed to be +5v at some point - if that goes on for a while, eventually the circuits for the same things, and cards in slots, are damaged and fail. If the floppy or optical drives won't work connected to another computer, their circuits are fried. "....the cd rom wont open..." If it came with the computer, you probably have a DVD combo drive - reads and burns CDs and DVDs - not a cd-rom (only) drive. The optical drives only require the power connector be connected to them and the computer be running in order for the tray to be able to eject and retract when you press the button on the front of the drive. Other than brief periods while booting when the bios is checking the drive (if the data cable is connected) to see if it has a bootable disk, it should eject and retract no problem at any time when the computer is running when you press that button. If it doesn't, the power supply is probably defective, and/or the drive is damaged. "recently everytime my pc would go into sleep mode, when it came out of sleep mode it would stay dark and i could barely see the screen, so i would have to reboot and it would be fine again." Standby or Hibernate modes depend on the power supply being able to provide enough current from it's +5vsb output - if that's not up to snuff, or has become so, Standby and Hibernate modes are likely to not work correctly. If that has never worked properly, the PS doesn't have enough current capacity from it's +5vsb output. If that has only started to happen recently, then it can't supply enough current now. I'm assuming you haven't reloaded Windows from a regular Windows CD since this last worked properly. If you have, Standby or Hibernate will probably not work correctly until after you have loaded the main chipset drivers for the mboard. No video is usually merely a symptom, and usually does not indicate there is a problem with your video chipset or the monitor. You should normally get video before Windows loads in any case, or even if no hard drive is connected. Ram does not normally go bad spontaneously. Even if it did, it is extremely unlikely more than one would go bad at a time. However, rarely, ram can be damaged by an event external to it, such as by a power spike or surge or a lightning strike event, or by a failing power supply that has produced too much voltage, or by a short, or by a static electricity discharge . Did you change which ram you have installed? If you install ram that is not compatible with a mboard main chipset's memory controller, or on some recent systems, not compatible with the cpu's built in memory controller, in the worst cases the mboard will not boot, and may not even beep. If the ram works fine when installed in a different mboard, that confirms there is nothing wrong with it, but if it doesn't work or doesn't work properly in the other mboard, that doesn't necessarily confirm it's bad - it has to be compatible with the other mboard's main chipset's or cpu's memory controller.

thanks for the replies, ive checked everything, ntohing has came lose. There has been no storms or power outages, it was working fine at my house. i think maybe the psu was on its way out and moving it might have just been the extra it needed to crap the bed. the psu is fsp group inc, only 250watts lol. when i got the pc, they told me the power supply wasent the greatest, i have a 500watt antec at home so once im home tomorrow ill try throwing that in and ill let you guys know if that was the problem, i just brought my pc here cause im baby sitting his 3 sons and i wanted to play the new world of warcraft expansion when they went to bed heh

like i said the ram has worked in this pc for 6 months, i bought the pc alrrady built from ncix, only thing ive added was my video card, radeon x1650 pro. and yah the "cd rom" is a dvd writer, but i didnt think i had to clarify that since they take almost no power when there not in use.

In that case, you have probably fried the power supply by installing that card. 250 watts! That's almost criminal - I expected a minimum 350 watt PS for a new computer! 250 watts is enough for the system to work fine, even when the max amount of ram and drives have been installed, but ONLY when no video card is installed that requires more than minimal current. E.g. it says here under System Requirements it requires your system must have a minimum 300 watt capacity PS: http://www.visiontek.com/products/c... It doesn't matter whether that's your card brand or not - any card with the same chipset requires a similar minumum power supply capacity. It's likely installing the Radeon card overloaded the power supply, and it was slowly damaged - cooked - to the point it no longer works properly. Installing the 500 watt Antec should provide more than enough power capacity for the system to work fine, providing the failing power supply has not already damaged the mboard. I was recently looking up PCI-E video cards for a friend. From that I know other PCI-E video cards may require up to a 500 watt minimum power supply capacity, for one video card, or more for two or more. Optical drives don't require much power even when you are using them, but burning DVDs, especially, puts a lot of load on your cpu, ram, and system resources.

yah ok, thanks a ton for the info, i didnt realize that the power supply was so low, stupity on my end i guess for not replacing it right away. i just hope it didnt dmg the mb like you said, we'll see tomorrow when i get home. so you think 500 watts wont be enough?