jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

For about a week, my son's computer hasn't wanted to turn on. If he kept tapping the power button or held it in for a while, it would start. Now it doesn't. The little "pilot light" on the MoBo is lit, so it's getting power. I played around with the switch and even shorted the two wires together. Everything is connected to the MoBo securely. I've had this happen with a Dell or two, and I took the switch out of an old one from the garage. I'll play around with it a bit more because I still think it's the switch.

In the meantime, I gave him my Baby Dell (small Inspiron). I put his C drive in it, and his D drive is running in an external case, so he's more or less back to normal.

I talked him into getting a new Dell as a backup/spare. It took some time to figure out Dell's web site, but I ordered him a nice one this morning. It's a a "New XPS Desktop." It doesn't have a number, like my 8930, so it's a different model. It will have Core i5, 16GB of Ram, a single 1TB HDD, and an optical drive. I had to do a Chat to find out how to get an optical drive. Some models have them, and some don't. What surprised me is that it cannot take a second hard drive. I bought an XPS 8930 a few weeks ago, and I was able to put my D drive into that - but not an optical drive. Crazy! The Core i7 would have cost over $150 more, and I didn't think it was worth the money. He saved over $200 with discounts, special offers, and credit I had with Dell. I'll add a Samsung 250GB SSD as the C drive and put his current D drive into the cage. Total cost was $883. Not bad compared with what I paid for computers years ago. It's nice spending other people's money.

Abo

He's very fortunate to have a father like you Jerry.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Every time I read of what people pay for modern computers and the receive for those dollars, I harken back to 1984 when I bought a Heathkit Z-150. Populated with an 8088 running at 4.77 mhz (I think), 640k mem, 2 360k floppies, and cga, I handed out $1800 and had to build it myself over the course of about 60 hours and hundreds of solder and weighed a bunch. OS was MS DOS 1.1 and included Word 1.0 and Multiplan 1.0. A mouse added $100, a NEC Multisync set me back $400, and a u92 80 column 9 pin dot matrix printer for $375. Eventually, it got a 20 mb hd for $250. Your money went a lot further.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

EDIT: That includes the latest version of PowerDirector (video editor) and also a photo editor for $77. That would cost $159 from the company.

alawry Loc: Timaru New Zealand

The switch is only making a circuit when you hold it, to trigger the power supply into life. After that it can be removed so not likely to be at fault. Having a light on the MB is a good sign but not enough to be able to say "the power supply is good" so can't be ruled out. So there's still a lot of diagnostics to go. Certainly much easier if you, or the repair person, had a known good power supply to swap in for elimination purposes. I was wondering how your old PC was coming doing, which was also having boot problems..

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

Jerry, it seems that you have a lot of computer problems , and always with Dell, same as when I was working , the Dell's in the office and our laptops were a PIA, that's why I'm reading this on an HP.

BillFeffer Loc: Adolphus, KY

Check the MB battery.

jbmauser Loc: Roanoke, VA

I had a similar problem with my Levano laptop. It went to sleep when it was closed and would not wake up. small light indicated it was asleep. hit the reset hole with a paper clip and removed the battery for the system to reset and power up cold. I could not easily pull the coin system battery. I had to send it out for a Motherboard replacement.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Wow, Dell and HP are the reason I decided years ago to build my own. Haven't had any problems since. And I saved a lot of money and have better quality components by building my own computers.

GeneS Loc: Glendale,AZ

Jerry
Like you, building my own for many years. I decided to try buying one.
Looked at a desktop. Then decided a large notebook that I could move around
was more what I was looking for.
Sagar, 10 core Intel I9 10900K, 32g memory 1 tb SSD 17" 4K display
Nvidia 2080, 4 slots for memory, 4 SSD slots. All the latest ports and 802 11ax
WiFi6 . Can run 3 external Displays.
The specs are unbelievable for a notebook.
Real down fall is the power, takes 2 brick size 280watt power supplies to run it
And I can hear the fans when running under load.
It is a monster, But I admit I will probably miss working on it

erickter Loc: Dallas,TX

For me, just the opposite. HP failures left and right. Dell less so. Scratch built PCs better. Asus laptops among the best.

Jeffers

Between us, my wife and I have three Dells. Best computers we have owned. Yes, each one has failed, but we purchased the life of the computer warranty, which is about the same cost of one repair. So they were repaired in our home next business day. OBTW, you can buy an external optical drive for about $35 at Target.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

These problems are with computers I built myself four years ago. Mine can't find a monitor, and my son's doesn't turn on. The Dells are fine. I've had good luck with Dells over the years.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes, I know about those externals. I got one from Amazon for mine. My son's will come with an internal drive.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Sounds good.