Power Supply or HD problem ?

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Greetings All, My son’s teacher shut her computer off yesterday afternoon and upon restarting about 2 hrs later the machine did not respond except to display “Please Check Signal” on the monitor. The power supply fan is running and the green power light on the front of the machine is on, but not the yellow or the red lights that indicate disk activity. It doesn’t sound like the HD is booting up, but the machine can only be powered down by pulling the plug or shutting off the power switch in the back (power management system in operation?) Could this be a hard drive failure or did the power supply fail? I’m leaning toward the power supply as the most likely culprit.
Thanks,
Doc

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It’s not likely to be the hard drive or you’d get some reaction from the BIOS when you start the machine (and you’d certainly get a signal to your monitor).

However, I’m also dubious about it being your power supply since your fan and power light comes on.

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but the machine can only be powered down by pulling the plug or shutting off the power switch in the back (power management system in operation?)

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Most of the newer machines one MUST hold the Off button in for 10 seconds or longer for it (the machine) to shut off. This is to prevent the bumping of the switch and turning off the machine.

If this machine has been being turned OFF in the wrong manner, pulling the plug, Lord knows what has happened to the power supply and/or hard drive. This hardware was not designed to be shut down in this manner. First I would have the power supply checked and then the hard drive. The hard drive may be scrambled and the OS be installed clean. I have had several clients tell me that only way to turn off the machine is to pull the plug and then the OS gets clobbered. I have rebuilt them from scratch, because a dirty install wiil NOT replace any protected files just add the ones that were deleted.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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First let me thank you and Douglas for the feedback. I was aware of the “10 second rule” and held on for 15 or 20 seconds before resorting to the power switch on the back. The teacher was unaware that it was there and simply pulled the plug before leaving yesterday . After opening the case and restarting the machine the only sound other than the power supply fan seems to be the CD-ROM drive initializing and then spinning down. Not a peep out of the HD or the 3.5 floppy. I shut down the power switch again, checked and re-seated all the cable connections inside the machine and rebooted with the same result. Having no tools and flying by the seat of my pants I felt it best to quit while I was still no worse off than when I started and came home and posted to the lounge. Suppose it’s best to let their tech department handle this one. I’ll pass along your feedback. Thanks again for the input gentlemen.
~Doc

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This is very similar to a problem I worked on recently. It is very possible that the FAT was damaged in the shutdown. Did you try booting to a floppy? you may have to check that the bios is set to seek the flppy first. Many schools will disable this to prevent students from rebooting to DOS via a floppy.

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I have been suffering some down time of my own this past week trying to shake a flu bug and don’t know what if anything has transpired at the school. Past experience tells me they are still scratching their heads and praying. I hadn’t even considered the FAT but now that you mention that and the fact that some schools disable the boot to floppy function in the BIOS, both those factors together make some sense here. No FAT, no computer. Right ?? And with the floppy disabled it wouldn’t initialize on boot up. I’ll run that by the Tech department on Monday.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It just might solve my problem. Now…. you got a sure fire cure for the flu ???

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Also you may find the switch may have slipped part way out of the retainer and is NOT able to be pushed in all the way that is needed. I have seen this on a LOT of newer machines.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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You’re always right there Dave! Another good thought. I’ll check that one myself Monday AM. Thanks for the input and your diligence.

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