Tower loads power, won't boot up

I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with what I'm assuming all the original hardware from the manufacturer. A friend gave it to me because he couldn't figure it out.

Pretty much what happens is I'll plug the plug in and it'll turn on automatically without me pressing the power button and on the front the power light button will show orange and the light with the cylinder symbol by it will show green.

Is this a fixable problem or should I just junk it?

 

Until the power switch or lead wire(s) connections are repaired / replaced we can not make a decision if the computer works. I'm not an electrician, but we have knowledgeable posters which may provide a temporary "go around" to get power to the computer.

 

On the Dells I work on occasionally, when power is supplied from the mains, the system starts momentarily and appears to do a self-check.

The green light with the cylinders is the HDD LED. I might think it was saying that there is a problem with drives. You could first try disconnecting the cables to the CD/DVD drive and try starting. No difference, disconnect the HDD.

The Dells I am thinking of seem to rely on "remembering" their settings using the CMOS, so get a replacement CMOS battery.

Matt

 

Hi Matt
I was concerned that billz015 is currently powering up computer with the power cord. The computers power switch appears to be faulting? Would this influence proper powerup? Your computer hardware knowledge exceeds mine by magnitudes, give or take a quadrant or two.

 

Hi Dennis,
You will have your own quadrants

An important piece of information is that the power button is lit orange. I had heard about Dells doing it before and it was not long ago that I saw it myself. The button should glow green during normal startup. I expect that the orange colour specifies a error situation.

You may be close, suggesting power, it could be a power supply problem.

There may be a reference to the orange LED in the motherboard manual (billz015, the m/b manual will be downloadable at Dell www.dell.com/support , sorry I don't have time to check it). I know I have searched at Dell before for what it means, but was unsuccessful.

I see these Dells starting momentarily when the mains power is turned on (and as I said, they seem to be doing a self-check), I have seen it before with IBM computers.

I don't think it relates to a malfunction of the power button, in fact, I would be rather certain the orange colour is a warning signal.

Matt