My 5-year old daughter uses an ancient (10 years+) desktop. It covers most of her needs very well.

This computer is a slow starter. It will take, from a couple of minutes up to an hour, before it starts to boot up, if it has been left un-plugged for some time.

But this is not a big problem, because it will always, eventually, start.

That is, until now, this time it will not boot up. It behaves as usual to beguin with: first you wait, then you get the red light and the green light, but that is it. It won't start the main boot up procedure.

The cd-drive works and I have tried to put in a windows-xp disk to see if it will start up from the cd, but it doesn't work.

I know - put in the bin. But my daughter loves it, she cries over it.

Sound like a faulty mother board, assuming you get no image on the monitor....

or it could be the CPU or power supply...

Depending on how technical you are you can try disconnecting the power, opening the case and pulling out all the connectors and reconnecting, removing and replacing all the memory and PCI cards.

Failing that, time to take it to a repair shop or replace it

This to me has all the symptoms of a failing (now failed) power supply unit.

They are not expensive, (600-800baht) and are easily replaced.

AFTER unplugging the PC from the mains supply and opening the case

Take out the old one (it unplugs from the motherboard with a single plug and unplug the power plugs from each disk /CD drive and then take out the 4 screws holding it to the case, and take it when you when you get a replacement.

If in doubt take several pictures with your digital camera first so you are sure of where everything goes when you reassemble it.

BUT

New baseline desktops are now very cheap, so why not buy your daughter a new one for Christmas?

Edited December 21, 200916 yr by thaimite

This to me has all the symptoms of a failing (now failed) power supply unit.

They are not expensive, (600-800baht) and are easily replaced.

AFTER unplugging the PC from the mains supply and opening the case

Take out the old one (it unplugs from the motherboard with a single plug and unplug the power plugs from each disk /CD drive and then take out the 4 screws holding it to the case, and take it when you when you get a replacement.

If in doubt take several pictures with your digital camera first so you are sure of where everything goes when you reassemble it.

BUT

New baseline desktops are now very cheap, so why not buy your daughter a new one for Christmas?

If the power supply had failed then he would get NO lights and the cd rom drive would also not work!If the computer sounds like it is booting up as normal it aint the power supply unit. If it is an old computer then my best guess is the video card has failed. Does the compuer make any beeps when starting ? Either try to change the video card or as already said get your daughter a new one for Xmas.

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This to me has all the symptoms of a failing (now failed) power supply unit.<br />They are not expensive, (600-800baht) and are easily replaced. <br /><br />AFTER unplugging the PC from the mains supply and opening the case<br />Take out the old one (it unplugs from the motherboard with a single plug and unplug the power plugs from each disk /CD drive and then take out the 4 screws holding it to the case, and take it when you when you get a replacement.<br />If in doubt take several pictures with your digital camera first so you are sure of where everything goes when you reassemble it.<br />BUT <br />New baseline desktops are now very cheap, so why not buy your daughter a new one for Christmas?

<br />If the power supply had failed then he would get NO lights and the cd rom drive would also not work!If the computer sounds like it is booting up as normal it aint the power supply unit. If it is an old computer then my best guess is the video card has failed. Does the compuer make any beeps when starting ? Either try to change the video card or as already said get your daughter a new one for Xmas. <img src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" /><br />

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Power supplies have different ouputs and voltages.

The symptoms described are those of an undervoltage and the power supply not being able to power up the system.

This happens with switched mode power supplies as capacitors etc age. These low voltages cause the unit to take longer to start until oneday when it will not start at all.

By contrast a video card or motherboard is a digital device and usually fails instantaneously without warning and will never kick in to life no matter how long it is left.

If in doubt take to to the shop but I stand by my previous advice

Edited December 21, 200916 yr by thaimite

Thank you, especially thaimite.

There are plenty of second hand power units in the local market. I'll get one of those for her. I might even give her some extra rams.

Good luck and happy Christmas to your daughter.

Just a thought, you are sure it is the PC not starting and not a monitor fault?

Good luck and happy Christmas to your daughter.

Just a thought, you are sure it is the PC not starting and not a monitor fault?

Yes, the start-up process is surprisingly noisy and you also get this hysterical blinking from the processor red-light.

Edited December 22, 200916 yr by bow