Hi potential helpers!

ive got a P4 3ghz+ windows XP MC2005 and over the last few days its been completely unuseable. I am not necessarily that knowledgable when it comes to computers but i generally can solve up any booting up problems by using safe mode or restore the system settings etc..

However my computer is turning on and loads up the packard bell screen on my monitor (where you can choose to go into BIOS settngs or press F8 for boot up options) then regardless of whether i leave it to continue booting up normally or if i try to get into safe mode the computer just freezes the monitor goes blank (yet stil is receiving signal), on one occassion the monitor has displayed the message "mode is not supported".

When i press the power button all that happens is the fan starts to spin...and i hear very little from the CPU or the harddrive. after around 2-3minsthe fan then starts spinning at its max.

The only thing ive recently tried to do to my computer is attach a 30m CAT5 ethernet cable to a router. And the only other piece of info i think is relevant is that around two weeks ago i stupidly left my PC on when i went on holidayfor 6 days (the comp was doing relatively little whilst it was on) when i got back it hadnt turned off or exploded!! and it has worked perfectly since this incident around 3 days ago i was playing FM07, whilst playing music and was stil able to run limewire inthe bkground.

Please help im really confused how to sort this.. i have no way of doing anything after i have pressed the power button.

This sounds like your hard drive has failed... Try another drive, or take this system to a repair shop to have it repaired

Hi, I am experiencing a similar problem, except mine is a GX240 Dell Optiplex.
When I press the power switch, it displays the Dell Logo and a status bar that moves slightly then freezes. Since it first happened, I stripped of everything and left only the floppy drive connected, still no improvement, reset CMOS switch, still no improvement, reseated RAM, stripped of everything and carefully dusted the motherboard, remove and reinserted CPU, replaced current AGP Video card with a PCI card but still nothing happens.

Any helpful suggestions will be much appreciated.

Same goes for you Ramo, for your "similar problem"... Gee I hate to repeat myself

Well, if the hard drive failed the system will still complete its POST. As I've said earlier, I stripped of everything except floppy drive but still no improvement. As for your advice to take the PC to the repair shop, I don't think that can be of any help since tha PC failed all basic tests.

Any more suggestions? welcome

So you are ready to argue with me Ramo? Pull the flat cable off the hard drive and see if the motheboard POSTS... If it does not, the motherboard is probably toast... If you are able to pull a processor and disconnect peripherals, you can change a motherboard

A hard drives failing electronics can "load" the motherboards Bus structure and cause a board not to post

well played!

Cool down mate. That was just crazy reasoning. Thanks for your time anyway, I might as well get a new board to save time and energy.