[tazical]

I have just come back from a year abroad, during which my 3 year old Dell Dimension 5000 PC was in storage. The first time I set it all back up it worked fine. (I had an external hard drive plugged into it via USB that was fine for a few days, and then the hard drive power supply conked out. I don't know if this has anything to do with the future desktop problems but should mention it!).

The second time I used the PC it switched itself off when it was idle for about three hours, which it has never done before. The third time it started up fine after the switch off but did the same thing again. Now it is not starting up at all- when I press the power button I'm getting the power LED and my A,B,C and D lights all flashing amber on the front but no fans, noises or any other signs of life.

I have unplugged everything from the power supply both in and outside the case, apart from the motherboard, and I am still getting the amber lights. I have checked all the USB ports for damaged pins, I have air dusted the case out and checked the motherboard for obvious damage. I have an amber light on the motherboard by the BIOS battery.

I am assuming that the problem is the power supply, as when I short out the green and black connectors on the motherboard plug it just clicks. However, that is as far as my technical knowledge goes and I can't swap it into another machine to test it thanks to Dell's 24 pin motherboard connector. Can anyone confirm that this sounds like the power supply? Is there a way to test it or the motherboard before I take a chance and buy a new one?

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I am assuming that the problem is the power supply, as when I short out the green and black connectors on the motherboard plug it just clicks

That suggests a bad power supply, you will have to try a replacement and hope when it failed it did not take anything with it, by what you described I am going to guess it did not, as it went easy and not just boom in a puff of smoke.

If you read here dell diag lights and scroll down to "System Lights" you will see that it means "A power supply or system board failure has occurred."

I can't swap it into another machine to test it thanks to Dell's 24 pin motherboard connector

You don't want to swap the suspected psu into another machine, but as far as I know any dell that has a Pentium 4 or higher uses a standard atx psu so the 24 pin connection would match.

Again do not try this psu in another machine, but it would be ok to try another atx psu in the dell, the problem here is if it will physically fit in the case, you have to check dimensions but if you have a spare to try as a test you would be able to do that without mounting it in the case, just connect up the 24 pin and 4 pin plus the drives and see what happens

[Doby]

I am assuming that the problem is the power supply, as when I short out the green and black connectors on the motherboard plug it just clicks

That suggests a bad power supply, you will have to try a replacement and hope when it failed it did not take anything with it, by what you described I am going to guess it did not, as it went easy and not just boom in a puff of smoke.

If you read here dell diag lights and scroll down to "System Lights" you will see that it means "A power supply or system board failure has occurred."

I can't swap it into another machine to test it thanks to Dell's 24 pin motherboard connector

You don't want to swap the suspected psu into another machine, but as far as I know any dell that has a Pentium 4 or higher uses a standard atx psu so the 24 pin connection would match.

Again do not try this psu in another machine, but it would be ok to try another atx psu in the dell, the problem here is if it will physically fit in the case, you have to check dimensions but if you have a spare to try as a test you would be able to do that without mounting it in the case, just connect up the 24 pin and 4 pin plus the drives and see what happens