[samplerdave]

Hi,

 

just looked through the posts and don't see anything that helps; so here goes.

 

I have a Dell Dimension C521 that was running W7.

 

Processor is AMD (Athlone) 64x2 dual core 4220.

 

Not long after I acquired this machine it just stopped working. The fans were running, but nothing turned on. So I put it aside and more or less forgot about it.

 

But today I dragged it onto the bench. And it fired up.

 

First with an error message asking me to run the recovery program. Which I did.

 

I worked for an our or so. then after maybe the second boot up I got the blue screen of death and the message that something bad had happened and it was saving all physical memory to disc.

 

It kept stopping this screen for half an hour but showed no sign of continuing any further.

 

I finally shut it down with the i/o button.

 

Now, the fans run, a couple of LEDs light up, but nothing appears on the screen.

 

I vaguely remember having run the recovery the last time it failed, with similar results.

 

 

I was wondering if there is some way that I can get it to boot from a CD, and maybe it will run Linux from this.

 

Or does anyone know any magic key combination that will allow me to get into safe mode ?

 

Here's hoping.

 

Dave.

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Safe Mode should be the same for any W7.  Just turn it on. when you see the Dell logo start tapping the F8 key until it says it's going into Safe Mode or shows you the menu.

 

If you still have the original Dell hard drive then you can run their diagnostics.  See: 

 

https://www.dell.com...on-c521/manuals

 

Click on the PDF after Service Manual.

 

Look under Troubleshooting.

 

You can read what the LEDs mean under Diagnostic Lights.  That may give a clue what is happening.

[RKinner]

Safe Mode should be the same for any W7.  Just turn it on. when you see the Dell logo start tapping the F8 key until it says it's going into Safe Mode or shows you the menu.

 

If you still have the original Dell hard drive then you can run their diagnostics.  See: 

 

https://www.dell.com...on-c521/manuals

 

Click on the PDF after Service Manual.

 

Look under Troubleshooting.

 

You can read what the LEDs mean under Diagnostic Lights.  That may give a clue what is happening.

[samplerdave]

Thanks, I'll look through the manual you suggest.

 

At the moment though, I don't have anything on the screen. Not even a logo.

 

I'm going to have to put this 'project' to one side for a while until I complete some work on my BBC Master, but will return to it later and do the full 'bare bones' strip down and see what happens from there.

 

Dave.