What to Do When the PC Won t Turn On

What to Do When the PC Won’t Turn On

There are two rather ordinary events that you tend to dread disproportionately to their frequency of occurrence: times when your cars don’t start and times when your PCs won’t start properly. I’ll leave the issue of the cars for another book, but there are some important steps you can take when the PC is misbehaving.

A Cautionary Tale: Before You Head to the Junk Yard

The only comment I’ve ever heard more from PC users than “I have a virus” (usually erroneously) and “But I don’t want to upgrade,” is this one:

Help! My PC is dead!

But the term “dead” is relative. And believe it or not, at least one U.S. state has a law against shooting your PC when you think its demise has come.

Just as I was writing this chapter, an acquaintance phoned me asking for new PC shopping suggestions. Knowing she had purchased a new PC within the last 18 months, I found myself asking what the problem was with her current system since she kept using the term “replace.”

As it turns out, there were several different problems, some of which had begun many months ago. Her power switch had begun to fail (it didn’t always respond when she pressed it), her BIOS was giving her odd messages when she booted the PC, and she was developing bad sectors on her hard drive. All of these issues had been exacerbated since she first noticed them, but she did nothing to try to resolve any of them, hoping they might just go away. (I could relate to that philosophy—in my 20s, the car I drove was almost older than I was and operated only under a steady provision of WD-40, duct tape, and prayer.)

However, about a week before her call to me, the PC wouldn’t start at all. On a whim, I suggested she check a few things and then gave her the number of a good technician in her area. “Get it checked before you decide to junk it,” I told her, deciding not to mention the fact that had she contacted the manufacturer when the initial problem (the failing power switch) first happened, her PC would have still been covered by its warranty.

She phoned back and left a message for me a few days later: her PC was back up and running beautifully again for less than $40. Loose wiring in the power switch just needed to be tightened, the BIOS errors were the result of a prematurely dead CMOS battery that needed a $5 replacement, and her PC manufacturer was sending her a new hard drive to replace the one amassing bad sectors.

While your results may vary, this is another reminder to try to address problems as they arise and that it’s worth an effort to check these issues out before you decide the PC must be junked.

Checking Power

The very first thing you need to do when you have a PC that doesn’t respond when you turn it on is to check the power and the power connections to the PC.

First, be sure the power cable is firmly connected to the back of the PC and that this cable is plugged into an outlet, surge suppressor or protector, or an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). If it’s plugged into anything except a direct electrical outlet, verify that whatever it is plugged into is in turn connected to power, and that the power is on.

A simple way of testing this is to take a working device, such as a lamp, and plug it into the same outlet that the PC is plugged into. Make certain this device is working, however, or it won’t be a valid test. If the working device doesn’t respond, check electrical devices located elsewhere in that room or in other rooms to see if they have power. If nothing has power, check your circuit breaker panel (or in very old homes and offices, a fuse box) and if necessary, contact your power company.

However, even if you see power working elsewhere, you shouldn’t assume that it’s not a power issue until you investigate. For example, it’s possible that the PC is plugged into an outlet on a particular circuit that has been tripped, meaning it has shut down, while other lights and appliances in the same room are on another circuit that is still engaged and working. In an old house where I once lived, the PC was on a circuit separate from anything else in that part of the house except for one bathroom outlet. Sometimes when my housemate plugged the blow dryer into that outlet and turned it on high, my PC and desk area would go dark. Eventually, I had to call an electrician.

Tip 

If you smell anything burning or you hear anything very strange, turn off the PC and disconnect power immediately until you rule out whether the PC is the cause of the smell or sound.

Checking Connections

Considering that I’ve had professional PC support technicians—and my own experience—tell me repeatedly that the most common reason a PC won’t start or work properly is because the PC is disconnected from working power or a needed component isn’t firmly connected to the PC, I always check my physical connections first.

Obviously, the easiest connections to check are the ones outside the PC, and that’s where you should start unless you have just been inside the PC case for another reason. In that event, the chances are almost as strong that you may have disconnected an internal component that requires a connection or wrongly connected something.

External Connections

The primary connection to verify is always the power connection, mentioned earlier. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to reverify the state of the power connection throughout your troubleshooting and repair work to be sure it’s in the same state you remember.

I know lots of friends and colleagues are apt to say, “Oh, I did that with the power turned on and I didn’t have a problem.” Unfortunately, these same folks aren’t apt to help you defray the medical or other repair costs involved when you try it with the power on and your result is far less favorable. Unless you obviously need power (because you’re trying to troubleshoot within Windows itself) or you’re specifically told to leave the PC on while you perform a step (as when adding and removing USB and IEEE 1394 devices), assume that the power should be not only turned off but disconnected.

But there are other external connections to check:

• the video cable running from the monitor to the back of the PC where the outer edge of your video adapter is installed

• cables coming from external devices such as printers, scanners, mouse, keyboard, drives, cameras, and joysticks

• separate power cords running from some of your external devices to another power source (an outlet, a surge suppressor, and so on)

Be sure that all cables and connectors are firmly attached and show no signs of damage or crimping. Ever get your mouse cord in a knot? Unfortunately, I have. These cords and cables aren’t meant to be treated like string; they contain communications channels for the devices to talk to the PC.

Look at power indicator lights (typically green, but sometimes amber or red) on your devices. Anything that should have an illuminated power indicator but doesn’t is suspect for a disconnected power source or outright device failure.

Internal Connections

As I mentioned previously, you should suspect an accidental disconnection or misconnection of some component inside the case if you’ve just recently been inside your PC to add, remove, or adjust hardware. Even if you didn’t leave a connection unattached or you accidentally knocked one off, you may have loosened the connector enough to cause a problem.

In this situation, knowing how the inside of your PC should look can go a long way toward being able to distinguish what’s different when you have a problem.

Tip 

If you’re reading this before you experience a problem, consider this: If you have a camera (especially a digital camera) available, take some decent photographs of the inside of your PC from different angles while it’s all working fine. Store these photos somewhere you can reach them if your PC becomes incapacitated. Then you can consult them and try to follow cables and connectors in the photos to determine where things should connect and how they should be oriented.

With that said, however, the kinds of issues you’re apt to encounter from a loose or missing internal connection are usually not a PC that won’t turn on at all. Instead, loose internal connections usually report device failures on the initial bootup screen or later, within Windows itself.

Other Factors

If nothing happens when you try to turn your PC on and you’ve checked everything else covered thus far in this chapter, broaden your investigation.

Check to see how your PC connects to power. If the PC connects to anything else besides directly into an outlet, it’s possible the intermediate device—the power strip that lets you plug additional devices into a single outlet, a surge suppressor, or a UPS—has failed and can no longer supply power to the PC. So check any intermediate devices to see if other working devices operate when plugged into them.

In addition, it’s time to check your power supply. When you turn your PC on, the power supply should engage and supply power to various PC components. You should be able to hear it and feel the air moving if you place your hand near the vent at the back of your PC located where the power supply fan pushes hot air from the system. If there is no noise from the power supply, the power supply is likely dead and must be replaced (see Chapter 11, “Avoiding Power and Overheating Problems”).