Hi,
I recently sold my 3 year old Dell XPS 420 tower to a friend but he has been unable to get it to work. Upon being turned on it immediately goes to a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left with no Dell screen, no BIOS options and no beep beforehand. The system fans all start running but that's as far as it goes. He's tried plugging a keyboard in and attempting to get into the BIOS but nothing happens. I thought the CMOS battery might be dead so he's replaced it with a new one but that didn't solve the problem.
The computer was pretty much unused for the last year after I bought a new one but I have started it up a few times recently to make sure it works as well as reinstalling Windows a few days ago and playing some games to check the performance would be enough for him.
Other than the CMOS battery he's tried unplugging the 24 and 4 pin power connectors and reconnecting them. I've no idea what the next steps are or what the problem could be other than a dead motherboard but the only change is the house that the PC is set up in. Any help would be much appreciated.
I recently sold my 3 year old Dell XPS 420 tower to a friend but he has been unable to get it to work. Upon being turned on it immediately goes to a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left with no Dell screen, no BIOS options and no beep beforehand. The system fans all start running but that's as far as it goes. He's tried plugging a keyboard in and attempting to get into the BIOS but nothing happens. I thought the CMOS battery might be dead so he's replaced it with a new one but that didn't solve the problem.
The computer was pretty much unused for the last year after I bought a new one but I have started it up a few times recently to make sure it works as well as reinstalling Windows a few days ago and playing some games to check the performance would be enough for him.
Other than the CMOS battery he's tried unplugging the 24 and 4 pin power connectors and reconnecting them. I've no idea what the next steps are or what the problem could be other than a dead motherboard but the only change is the house that the PC is set up in. Any help would be much appreciated.
. Looks like one of the removed RAM sticks is bad. I'll ask him to test them tomorrow but for now it's pretty much sorted. Thanks for the help, guys!