Author: Maria S.

Diagnose, fix it yourself in 5 minutes

These are the things you can do to troubleshoot this yourself. After each of these steps, press the ON button to test again. Diagnosis is only effective if you do things one at a time.

1. Press EJECT on the CDROM see if any mechanical sounding action results. If it ejects or tries to eject then power is probably OK, but the Operating System has crashed, or else the monitor is off or disconnected.
2. Check there is a light on the monitor / screen. If not then test with a different monitor.
3. Disconnect ANY USB devices (including Keyboard, Monitor, External USB disk, Printer etc)
4. Completely disconnect power plug. Wait 20 seconds. Reconnect.
5. Test another device with the same power cable / wall socket to ensure it is live.

Call your IT support. Make a note of the following findings to help them assist.

1. Do you hear any noises or see lights flashing briefly anywhere on the machine at the moment you plug it in?
2. When you attach an Ethernet cable between the Ethernet Wall Socket (if you have one) and the Ethernet socket on the machine, are there any lights?

If your organisation has no IT support, we may be able to help.

For the confident or the brave

If your willing/able to open the case and get under the hood you can probably get to the root of the problem yourself! Firstly
ensure that the power supply is live as per instructions above (must be some lights or noise when you plug in power). Sometimes a faulty peripheral can stop the machine from starting up so lets try to disconnect them all. Again it’s important, after each step below, to test the ON button again.

1. Open the case – on most modern machines you don’t need tools
2. Disconnect the CDROM
3. Disconnect the Hard Drive
4. (advanced only) Disconnect all the memory modules. Be very careful not to handle with un-gloved fingers the gold/silver strips on the modules. If response to power-on changes then probably you’ve got a faulty one. In this case, place them back in the machine one at a time repeating power-on test each time. When re-installing press firmly and gently, don’t forget to ensure the holding clips are closed properly. When behaviour changes you’ve probably found your faulty SIM. You can get like-replacements from https://crucial.com/ or contact us for a quote.