I'm having trouble with my Acer Aspire desktop

[CyanidePrincess]

Hello, I'm really hoping that someone here can help me, I've made an account just to ask this question..

I had to restart my computer today, but upon start-up, the computer itself would start normally.. and by normally, I mean that I could hear all of the little gizmos on the inside starting up. I could hear the fan, and what sounded like the processing unit, but nothing else would start.. and what I mean by nothing else would start, is that my monitor didn't turn on (as it does when you turn on your computer), my keyboard didn't turn on (I can tell, because it lights up when it turns on), and my mouse didn't turn on (really couldn't tell if it did, or didn't because the monitor didn't turn on).

I read somewhere that RAM sticks could cause this issue, so I disconnected the RAM sticks and put them back in, switched them around, but to no avail, it did the same thing. So then, to check my motherboard, I removed both RAM sticks and turned my computer on and to my pleasant surprise, my computer beeped as it should, to indicate that the motherboard was still alive.

So, I put both RAM sticks back into their places, tried it again, but still nothing.

I haven't had any prior incidents with this computer, it's never frozen, or turned off by itself, it's never locked up, or crashed, so I'm not sure what the problem could be.

I really need for my computer to be OK, because I have pictures of both of my grandmothers on my hard drive that I hadn't had a chance to back up (I just bought a flash drive today before I had to restart and I was planning to back most of my important documents up to my flash drive), both of my grandmothers have recently passed away, so those pictures are extremely sentimental to me.

If no one can really tell me what's wrong, then at least tell me that it isn't my hard drive..

Thanks for your time..

 

[Route44]

We want you to run Memtest on your RAM.

1. Go to www.memtest.org and download the latest ISO version which is 4.20. It is free and perfectly safe.

2. Burn ISO to a CD.

3. Place CD in your drive and reboot with CD in drive. (You might have to place your drive as first bootable in your BIOS) The test will take over.


There is a Tutorial: How to use Memtest in our Guides and Tutorials forum; follow the instructions. There is a newer version than what is listed; use the newer. If you need to see what the Memtest screen looks like go to reply #21. The third screen is the Memtest screen.

Step1 - Let it run for a LONG time. The rule is a minimum of 7 Passes; the more Passes after 7 so much the better. The only exception is if you start getting errors before 7 Passes then you can skip to Step 2.

There are 8 individual tests per Pass. Many people will start this test before going to bed and check it the next day.

If you have errors you have corrupted memory and it needs to be replaced.

Step 2 – Because of errors you need to run this test per stick of RAM. Take out one and run the test. Then take that one out and put the other in and run the test. If you start getting errors before 7 Passes you know that stick is corrupted and you don’t need to run the test any further on that stick.


* Get back to us with the results.