Inspiron 530s No Longer Powers Up

Been trying to fix this with no luck. Ive been hoping its something other then the motherboard.

Working with a Dell Inspiron 530s.
The inspiron is the thin silver/white one.
Pic
Pic2
Pic3



A little while back it stopped powering up completely. You don't even make it to the very first start up screen.

Video 01
^A look around inside

Video 02
^ What happens when I turn it on.

The lighting is the best i can get for now, short of waiting till a sunny day and going outside.

I have already replaced the psu.
I tried disconnecting all the other power plugs and leaving only the 24pin connected (and that 4pin black and brown wire that goes over near the fan.)
Tried removing the cmos battery and tried resetting the jumper/button. But since it doesn't power up i have no idea if it did anything. (or i might have done it wrong, i don't know)
Capacitors all look fine that i can see.
Tried removing the video card.

I was going to try different ram sticks, but since moving i cant seem to find my old ones >< I replaced the memory sticks about 6-9 months ago with four new 1gb sticks. The only old ones i can find are for an older comp and are not compatible. - I did try booting up with each stick tho. Along with all possible pairing of two sticks. As well as all four and none. None of it made a difference.

Short of the motherboard, im out of ideas. This was a comp i got as a present for my dad somewhere around 2007-2008ish. It became mine again when he died last October. Now that its not working im back to my old 2002 comp. (The loving irony that my dads comp would go out, while my 2002 is still going strong.)

Any ideas?????

damn videos..

Video 01

Video 02

This may help ...

http://support.feelpcs.com/pc-spec/Inspiron530S/trouble.htm

Usually ram bad will still power up you just get an error at bios screen. If its not the power supply most likely its the board sorry to say.

Most of that applies to after the comp has started. Sadly mine doesnt get that far.

The only thing i rly noticed on there was


Tho it does have a good bit of info on the system. Thanks for that'


yea, thats what i fear. I havnt checked yet, but even if they have a board replacement so that system, itll probably cost far more then its worth :(

Dell said they dont make those motherboards anymore. No surprise there. They said the part was XT478. But so far i havnt found it on any other sites either.

$80 Better then i thought, even if its a refurb

New Bulk assuming that jsut means they bought a bunch of them at one point. $112

Never heard of either of these two places, but not many options for that

Honestly dude, I'd resell the psu on ebay, sell the rest "as is, for parts, not working" and wipe the hdd with your other tower.


(obviously get the stuff off you need)

save up about $200-300 and get a barebones kit from tigerdirect or something, it will run better than that, and will have in warranty parts.

(and it's not that much more than you're looking at currently, and you could get about 1/3 of it out of what you do have).

On another note: it looks like you have a modem in the bottom of that case, throw that thing out.

reseat the other video card (if not try the onboard, I know we talked about this) and try to reset the cpu, I'm assuming you probably don't have thermal paste, but if you can't get the thing to turn on, having it overheat from not properly cooling won't be an issue.

I doubt ill get rid of my dads comp any time soon...

But i have been thinking about a new comp. Trouble is, i cant afford something to expensive, but i dont want to cheap out on it either. As many know, up until my dad died last oct, i was still using my comp from 2002 (and thats what im using now again.) So i get my use out of them. Because of that i dont want to get something thats only minimally acceptable for today.

While i know how to take apart and install most new hardware, ive never built one from scratch or a kit. Motherboards and processors are the two main things ive never had to deal with physically.

it auto came with that modem card' The larger graphics card actually sits in a different type then the modem card and the open spot next to it.

I have no idea how to reseat a cpu. Never had to before'

This and this look decent.
Last one looks nice to lol but im guessing its just a bit out of price range'

Throwing it together is easy, just a matter of getting the screws in/out and not shorting out a header.

There's plenty of tutorial videos, I'll find some later.

Yes, it's most likely a pci-e video card (I could tell if I looked at the slot) the other slots are regular PCI, then there's the video card slot your old one may have: AGP.

I threw a computer together about 2 years ago for less than $250, and just ugpraded the card, and it was what I used in my desktop until march, and compared to my $1000+ laptop.

Or you can buy the same pc on ebay for $70. I buy refurbs online for my friends who just wanna fb and stuff. In great shape, worked fine. Installed windows 7 and kept it moving.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/141306005962?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

A lil searching around and you can get much better ones (even cheaper sometimes).

Here's one for you. $65 total. 2 ghz cpu. Swap out the parts you wanna keep and there you go.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Inspiron-530S-SFF-PC-Intel-Core-2-1GB-No-HDD-DVDRW-COA-/201156085077?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item2ed5d64555

I have about 4-5 HP dc7800 USDTs that I'm trying to get rid of :P

Some of those prices are lower then i would have ever thought 0.0

The main reason i wanted to repair my 530s (other then money of buying a new one) was because it was a gift from me to my dad many years back. I didn't want his computer to follow him in death. Altho he might be missing his solitare...
But i assume buying another 530s for a motherboard would be a bad idea. Lotta different configuration/versions. Imagine not all would be compatible.

Edit: tho i love that guys description

I've had great luck with them. Bought one for a friend for her school work. She does just fine.

I don't doubt that at all osaia. Might look into one one day as well. One thing ive learned time and time again, is back up systems come in handy!

I was looking through them a bit today. There is one listed thats at $40, even if it is vista. But the rest seem to be around 80-100. (And 75% seem to be 'as is'/parts.) For that price i mine as well just get the motherboard. Not only fix my dads comp which i would like to begin with, but heck, ive already got new ram/hdd/psu.

If i did that, im assuming i would have to transfer the cpu from one to the other tho. Would i need anything other then the thermal paste?

Also thinking about looking into those building kits soon as well. While my 2002 computer is doing great for its age, you can tell its reaching its limitations.

Vista is just the operating system. I always upgrade them to Windows 7. Think about it this way. They come with parts. Parts u can recycle. Sure, u get the entire pc. Let's assume u rebuild dads
OK, so u got two computers. Dad's, and eBay. EBay is used for parts. Dad came with 1gb ram. EBay came with 2. Swap the eBay to dad. U got 3 gb ram. Dad hd is 100gb. EBay is 300, hd swap. Take the old 100, buy a $4 external USB enclosure (eBay again). Now u got 100 gb of backup storage. Power supply fails later? Strip it from eBay. Dad only got a cdrw drive, eBay burns dvds? Swap. Don't look at it just from the pc itself. See the entire pic.

Even better, understand the sum of all parts. The eBay pc ram cost more than the entire price of the entire pc in most cases. Heavily discounted replacement parts u can use now or future. Give dad's pc room to grow and live on.


Just looked online. The price of a sata desktop hd hovers between 20 to 40. For the price of JUST the hd, u get the entire system...

this is a good point. Granted i don't need them now. I already upgraded his comp to 1tb hdd, 4gb ram (max), has cd/dvd even floppy drive, and new psu. - But as this whole thing has shown, replacements parts are always nice to have. - Ill send him a message and see if he can find out what model motherboard his uses. Probably not the same, but its worth asking.

Edit:
Im still using XP myself. I have the restore disks that can reinstall xp to the ebay comp, but since its built with vista im not sure if there would be any compatibility issues. Or if the product key would work on it since its already used on my dads comp.

Product key is not interchangeable. It's "married" to the system.

I wouldn't worry much about product keys, just gimme a PM about needing something activated and I'll give you the tools.

Was gonna say tht but refrained. Gj

If i ended up with a new motherboard would i need anything other then thermal paste to transfer the cpu from one to the other?

rubbing alcohol and a fine cloth to remove the old dried thermal paste from cpu

It's well known about me and my piracy.



and well new thermal paste, can pick up a tube at radio shack (they usually carry artic silver) or can pick up some online.

If i got a barebones kit i assume i would need a new OS for it to. Would that have most of the drivers?

It would usually come with the motherboard cd/dvd that has the drivers on it.

But it's still typically best to go to the manufacturer's website and download the latest ones.

As for the OS, PM me.