Dell PC making funny noise when turned on

somano

My pc is in constant use but I was away for the past 2 weeks and when I turned on pc, there is a type of whining sound actually at first I thought it sounded like a pc trying to connect to internet. There is no signal coming through to monitor. The sound goes off after about 20 seconds but system doesnt seem to be booting. Could the pc be in safe or power save mode because of the 2 week activity ? Thanks

Dorsanty

Could be a number of things. You know what the power settings on your comp were? Sleep after X hours etc? Hibernate after even more time?

If you turn the computer on and fail to see the usual BIOS stuff on the screen then there's something preventing the BIOS from working properly. This can normally be put down to a device which has failed. Only thing is finding which one.

One option is to remove devices from the computer and see if it works when almost nothing is attached to it. I'd suggest that you open the case and remove the power cable from the harddisk drive and cd/dvd rom drives. Then turn it on and see if the BIOS shows up. If so plug back in the cd/dvd rom drive and test again. If it still works plug back in the hard disk drive. If the problem happens again now that the hard disk is plugged in again you've probably got a failed harddisk controller on your drive. Which is bad news.

somano

Dorsanty wrote:

Could be a number of things. You know what the power settings on your comp were? Sleep after X hours etc? Hibernate after even more time?

If you turn the computer on and fail to see the usual BIOS stuff on the screen then there's something preventing the BIOS from working properly. This can normally be put down to a device which has failed. Only thing is finding which one.

One option is to remove devices from the computer and see if it works when almost nothing is attached to it. I'd suggest that you open the case and remove the power cable from the harddisk drive and cd/dvd rom drives. Then turn it on and see if the BIOS shows up. If so plug back in the cd/dvd rom drive and test again. If it still works plug back in the hard disk drive. If the problem happens again now that the hard disk is plugged in again you've probably got a failed harddisk controller on your drive. Which is bad news.

The pc worked perfectly well when I left but it didn't go into "hibernation" when I went away last year but it would kinda make sense but the noise? Without BIOS settings coming on screen I presume there is no way of accessing what those settings are ? Having to ring dell customer support is something I would not look forward to !

somano

3 & 4 lights were lit up so I took out memory sticks and put back in and it worked on reboot. Any idea why this happened ?

Anti

They could have just became loose. Or dust could have built up on the contcts. Just think yourself lucky as your pc is still working.,

somano

Anti wrote:

They could have just became loose. Or dust could have built up on the contcts. Just think yourself lucky as your pc is still working.,

Indeed