dell 2400
Was in a hot garage for 6 months
The tower turns on, fans work, lights on front of tower come on.
Keyboard comes on.
Monitor turns on, but no picture.
If I unplug the monitor from the tower, the monitor will display a message "No signal input or cable disconnected". This is the only thing the monitor will display. If I push the menu botton on the monitor nothing happens.
Any help would be appreciated. I am not computer savy, so it could be an easy fix.
Doesn't look good.
The fact that it powers up at all indicates that the power supply is okay, and the message when the monitor is disconnected means that the monitor is probably not the problem.
It could be a bad graphics card. Unfortunately, the D2400 uses an integrated graphics card, meaning that it is part of the motherboard.
Does the unit make any beeping noises when you attempt to power it up?
The D2400 is about 5 years old (a long time in "computer years"), so it might not be worth taking to a repair shop.
In other words, it might be time for a new computer.
> Doesn't look good.
> The fact that it powers up at all indicates that the
> power supply is okay, and the message when the monitor
> is disconnected means that the monitor is probably not
> the problem.
> It could be a bad graphics card. Unfortunately, the
> D2400 uses an integrated graphics card, meaning that
> it is part of the motherboard.
> Does the unit make any beeping noises when you attempt
> to power it up?
> The D2400 is about 5 years old (a long time in
> "computer years"), so it might not be worth
> taking to a repair shop.
> In other words, it might be time for a new computer.
Thank you for your reply
When it first starts it makes one beep, then a second faint beep one or two seconds later.
Going by memory, it sounds ok? It makes the whirring sound when starting and humms when idle, with the tower light on. The rear fan runs.
I have not let it sit "on" for an extended period of time.
I forgot to mention it did get dusty.
I do not think it was exposed to animals or insects, it was in a car parked in a garage. Perhaps a little warm.
It worked fine before I stored it.
> Thank you for your reply
> When it first starts it makes one beep, then a second
> faint beep one or two seconds later.
A single beep is normal. I was looking for a series of beeps, which is a code that gives information regarding the problem. The beep code is a pattern of sounds; for example, one beep followed by a second beep and then a burst of three beeps (code 1-1-3) means that the computer was unable to read the data in nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM).
> Going by memory, it sounds ok? It makes the whirring
> sound when starting and humms when idle, with the
> tower light on. The rear fan runs.
> I have not let it sit "on" for an extended
> period of time.
Wouldn't hurt to try, although I doubt it will help, either.
> I forgot to mention it did get dusty.
Shouldn't matter. You can remove the side cover and blow out the dust with a can of compressed air, using short bursts.
> I do not think it was exposed to animals or insects,
> it was in a car parked in a garage. Perhaps a little
> warm.
> It worked fine before I stored it.
While you have the cover off, you could carefully remove and reinsert each of the connectors on the motherboard. You could also remove and reinstall the memory chips, although the absence of a beep code seems to indicate that the memory is not the problem.
If you're not comfortable pulling connectors and memory chips, consider asking a computer-savvy friend, or taking it into a repair shop.
If none of this works, then it is probably time to start thinking about a new computer.
Perhaps the Lithium battery that saves your BIOS settings is dead and the computer no longer knows your boot drive is C:
There's a way to get into the BIOS settings by holding down some keys when you turn it on. Should be in the manual or available on line at the vendors web site.
> Perhaps the Lithium battery that saves your BIOS
> settings is dead and the computer no longer knows your
> boot drive is C:
> There's a way to get into the BIOS settings by holding
> down some keys when you turn it on. Should be in the
> manual or available on line at the vendors web site.
A dead CMOS battery is always a possibility in a computer that has been in storage for a long period of time.
However, the problem as I understand it is that there is no display on the monitor at all. Even if the battery is completely dead, there should at least be an error message.
Actually, the BIOS would likely default to the fail-safe settings, allowing the unit to boot up normally, except that the date and time would be wildly inaccurate.
It would not do much good to access the BIOS settings with a non-functional display. :-)
So I got brave and figured out how to open my computer, it was full of dust webs. I carefully vacumed and did not hit any of the interior parts . I don't know what I am looking at but everything inside looked okay. I tried to start it up with the same results. The tower came on but no picture on the monitor.
I do appreciate the feedback. I will look inside a bit more.
> So I got brave and figured out how to open my
> computer, it was full of dust webs. I carefully
> vacumed and did not hit any of the interior parts . I
> don't know what I am looking at but everything inside
> looked okay. I tried to start it up with the same
> results. The tower came on but no picture on the
> monitor.
DON'T VACUUM!! Had you ever vacuumed before? The static electricity can fry your hard drive. I know. My son did it once on my computer! :-(
Don
> So I got brave and figured out how to open my
> computer, it was full of dust webs. I carefully
> vacumed and did not hit any of the interior parts . I
> don't know what I am looking at but everything inside
> looked okay. I tried to start it up with the same
> results. The tower came on but no picture on the
> monitor.
> I do appreciate the feedback. I will look inside a bit
> more.
I would borrow another monitor and see if the same thing happened or not - eliminate monitor problem.
If it has an old-style floppy drive, put a bootable diskette in and see if it boots.
Remove every card and memory chip and replace it. Clean the points if you feel brave.
Put hard drive in another machine and see if it boots from that. I know you probably don't know which gizmo that is lol.
Find a geek friend to fool around with it.
You got nothing to lose whatever you do - it's not like you can break it!
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