Need some leads...

[j2k4]

My wife's old Dell E520 went fzzzzzz over the weekend -

She 'woke' it up with the mouse, only to have it start flashing a BSOD (I saw all this from my recliner) - flashing so fast as to be unreadable - then the monitor went black with power light flashing as if it went to sleep.

The tower seems to be sitting in a more-or-less static state (occasional hard-drive indicator flashes); a hard shut-down and restart yields what looks to be an abnormal flashing of the '1 2 3 4' lights on the 'puter - which, I suppose, indicates what the problem might be - then settles into the static state.

The fact I have no video doesn't help, of course; I have a spare vid-card (GS 7600) I can throw in to see if that's the problem, but...

Any ideas?

[clocker]

Old Dell, eh?

Check the motherboard for blown caps and try a different power supply.

[j2k4]

Old Dell, eh?

Check the motherboard for blown caps and try a different power supply.

I can do that.

I was gonna call you tonight, I think.

Upon opening the carcass, no blown caps are revealed.

A power supply from a Dell E521 was substituted, to no avail.

Same result in all aspects.

I hate this new board format.

[sandman_1]

So you are getting no video whatsoever even during the POST process?