Dell Inspiron desktop pc won't boot up

I have a Dell desktop pc (Inspiron - I think it's a 530 - I'm at work and the PC is at home). It won't boot up. When you push the power button it turns blue and you can hear the inner workings running (sounds like the disk drive is running) but nothing happens. The screen won't even come up. Normally when powered on the button on the screen turns from orange to blue and shows the dell screen, etc. The button on the screen stays orange, doesn't even try to come on. The tower runs until you hold the power button in until it powers down. Please help! My son uses this computer for his online college classes and he really needs it. Thanks!

 

No history really. We have had electrical problems at the house and the power has gone off a number of times. The PC is connected to a surge suppressor. It was working fine night before last, but when we got up yesterday the computer wouldn't boot up. My son did say that the electric company had been outside working on the lines that morning. The PC was moved across the room but that was about a month ago and was working fine after the move. No recent changes made to the PC. The computer actually has two monitors even though one of them is not hooked up at the moment. It has a dual monitor card.

 

New info - This afternoon when my son got up and tried to turn on the computer again, this time he gets 4 beeps, pause, 4 beeps. I'm told this indicates a RAM memory failure? How is this fixed?

 

Hi Steve,
Well, the saga continues, LOL. I had my son pull the power plug, then push the power button to release power from the motherboard. Then I was going to have him re-seat the memory, but he plugged it in and it booted right up! Not sure what happened to cause this unless the computer tried to boot up during a brown-out and that somehow messed with the memory. Anyway, we are back on, for the moment anyway, and we do appreciate your help! Have a great evening! (No telling, I may be back on here if it happens again, LOL).

 

Thanks!

 

If you ever get a sudden shutdown like a power outage, try clearing the cmos as a first check to make sure the bios is at factory settings. Some times in a sudden shut down, the bios does not have time to save settings and therefore, clearing the CMOS will get it back to the factory settings.