I have a Dell desktop that is several years old, but has served me well. Updated everything and was working fine. Turned everything off and unpluged all from wall then went south for 4 months like every year. Came back last month and turned all back on, and there was no display. I am running Windows XP. Power, hard drive and all else seems to be on. Tried another monitor same problem. Was told it was probably the display protion on the mother board, and it is cheaper to buy new tower. I did, but found the same mother board from Dell pretty cheap. Could it be something other than the mother board before I purchase board? YOU HAVE BEEN VERY HELPFUL TO ME IN THE PAST YEARS. Thanks, senior basic computer knowledge.

Given what you describe, it is most likely the system board.

Before you do anything drastic, check/replace the BIOS battery. Older motherboards don't have "auto-check" of the system, and if the BIOS battery is weak, your system can't find the settings that it needs to function.

Thanks micker377, I will replace battery first. If I do replace the board, will I have to reformatt, or will it come up the same?

But if the battery were bad, you would still have video in almost all cases. You can check by clearing the cmos with the jumper on the board. If still no video, it is not the battery. In fact it should run with the battery pulled from the board, you would just have to load defaults, and date/time every time you booted the system after loosing power.

Also, check the capacitors on the system board (they look like tiny cans). Make sure the tops of them are not bulging or leaking anything. If some of them are starting to bulge at the tops, you will begin having problems.

Dan

If it ain't broke, why fix it?
If it's broke, try to fix it..
If you can't fix it, get yourself a good baseball bat and swing away! :)

This is what I would do.

1) unplug the power - then hit the power button. (drains power out of the power supply)
2) power up - same symptoms? Step 3.
3) If possible, reset the system BIOS on the motherboard. often a small pin header with a jumper to short out two pins.
3a) if not, just slip the battery out of its holder, unplug the power and switch the system on to drain the power again. Same symptoms? - Step 4
4) if all else fails, install a graphics card - if its an older PC it may only have an AGP slot or in some instances, older Dells only have provision for PCI based cards.
4a) New PC time!

ACSS - SME
General Geek

Have already bought new tower, would just like to fix this one if possible for back up. Thanks for all your help and suggestions. If I find a board with same number, will I have to reformat?

I'd try the Monkey's 4th suggestion first. If you can borrow a video card from somewhere else, install it and have the system boot, then you know its not the motherboard, maybe just the onboard graphics card, and standard graphics card should be much cheaper and involve no formatting.

As far as formatting with a new motherboard, its unlikely you'll need to. If the motherboard is identical, you may just need to reactivate Windows. If there are differences a repair install which preserves data and installed application may be all that is needed. There's no way to guarantee either way though until you install it and try to boot.

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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

Thanks to micker377, for having me try replacing the battery first. I was ready to order a mother board and after that suggestion, I spent $2.99 for a new battery and hooked my monitor back up to it and WOW I have a computer fixed. Wish I would have tried that before I bought a new tower. Thanks everyone.