about a month ago i put together my own system using a 1.2ghz athlon processor and an MSI k7t266 pro (ms-6380) motherboard. it uses AMI BIOS. i was running Win2k with optimized BIOS settings and was using a keyboard password to boot the computer instead of the power button (i was fascinated by the novelty of it). win2k became very unstable under the optimized settings, so i loaded the manufacturer's fail-save BIOS settings and win2k worked fine. then i shut down the computer (through the start menu) and now i can't turn it on again!!! i'm sure everything is working fine, and when i flick the power supply switch in back i can see the keyboard lights flash, but i can't get the computer to turn on! power button doesn't do anything, neither does the keyboard. what did i do?? do i need to get the BIOS reprogrammed or replaced somehow..? and if so, how? this is rather frustrating. thanks for any help...

Start by unplugging the power cord. Then take the battery out and reinstall it. This will reset the Bios to factory standard. Treat the unit as if you were just putting it together. Check everything to make sure it's all pushed together tight. Check the Ram, video card ect. replug all the power connections. Put the power cord back in and start it up. If it does not start up right away, unplug the rear power cord over and over again untill it bots. It may take 10 or 15 times. That last part probably won't be neccessary. It sounds like you have a loose CPU or loose Ram chip.

well it took a while but it worked! i had to plug and unplug the power cord a bunch of times though. thanks a lot... that thing had me going for a while there... just curious, why did i have to keep unplugging the power cord before it would boot up?

Who knows? I found that sometimes static will build up in the cable running from the monitor to the computer, and if you take it off and rub your hand across the pins to discharge the static, or remove the power cord a s----load of times, they usually start up.