I normally keep my machine running 24/7 - with a day or 2 off every few weeks. I went on vacation earlier this month and had it off for a week. When I went to turn it back on, nothing showed on the monitor. I figured the monitor was having "issues", so I unplugged it and plugged in another, turned it back on and everything was OK. Last week, the power went off in my house for a few seconds. Because its an ATX, I went to turn it back on. Again, no picture displayed. No beeps heard. And it sounds like its going through a loop of some kind. The little red light I normally see flashing and the sound it makes when it is "working" isnt there. My assumption is either a bad HD or motherboard. Any ideas? (I had heard that several people had problems when they updated their XP with a service pack fm Microsoft. I downloaded an update but never installed it because of what I heard.)

always replace your power supply first before making any new action. what you can do is you can take carefully look at your board and see if you can find any cracks, a huge power surge can damage your motherboard and all other componets. if you can see the hard drive working, the red light, then i am sure its working. but i can't guarantee there is no damage done to your motherboard.

You can turn the on/off switch off on the power supply unit for a bout a minunte and switch it back on and power up see if it help. If not help, I also suggest replace power supply first and work down from there.

umm, what about the cmos battery? when mine died, the computer wouldn't post, and it was a similar situation in that the computer was off for a month while we moved. Since that's the simplest, and cheapest solution, I'd check that first.

I dont believe there's anything wrong with the power supply. Its running - same sound - good supply of air coming out. I built this machine approx 9 months ago. The power supply was new. The motherboard was used so that may give credance to the CMOS battery dying. Im gonna guess, the only way to check and see if thats the problem is to buy a new one and replace it? Could this possibly have something to do with the BIOS perhaps hiccouping when she was cut off? Oh BTW there shouldnt be any power surge damage because she didnt come back on when the power came back on - I turned her on (ATX).

I'm a big fan of simple solutions first:)

I donno. Now that I think about it, Im not 100% sure my system speakers gave me ANY beep before this problem. I vaguely remember wondering why she didnt beep when I was putting her together, but she worked fine so I forgot about it. (And yes, Im sure I have the system speakers connected correctly) Last night I took off all connectors. All I left connected was the power supply and processor. Again, no beep. Soooooo I took a power supply off an old machine that I had sitting around not working. It has those old style connectors that connect fm the power supply to the power button, reset button, LEDs... Well, I didnt have anything to connect them to on this machine. But I plugged her up anyway. Anddd lets just say one of those connectors must have touched one of the other unconnected connectors and made some pretty blue sparks so I unplugged it. I plugged it back up the way it was - and it still does the same thing. Yesssss I know that may very well have completely fried everything. So now, Im going to get another NEW power supply and try to hook that up. If that doesnt do it - I have a nice new Athlon bare bones kit in the back of a UPS truck somewhere in the Montana area on its way to me. I was trying to salvage this one as a third one for my kids to use. But...