MY COMPUTER WONT TURN ON! Help!!!

My computer does not turn on.  when I hit the power button on the tower, the dell info pops up on my screen as if it is about to turn on... then nothing.  A blank black screen.  My sister thinks it may be the fan in the tower.  Any ideas anyone?  Thanks in advance!

By what you've described, the PC stay turned on (fans running, case lights on). Is this correct? It's just the screen goes blank after the splash logo or does everything turn off? If your BIOS is set to monitor your fan, it could shut down on its own at boot up.

I would check that all the component fans are running. Start it with the case open and make sure the CPU fan is turning. That's the big computer chip right in the middle of the motherboard and it's probably covered by a heat sink with a fan over it:

CPU FAN

If that's not it and fans are OK, then it sounds like it's with Windows itself. You are getting a splash logo which means your video card works until Windows begins loading.

Lets see if you can get a picture when in Safe Mode. With Dell systems, you get there by repeatedly tapping the F8 key when you power it up. Choose Safe Mode with networking with your arrow keys and hit enter. If you get a picture of your desktop (it may look a little different), then you likely have a driver issue and will need to update/reinstall your video drivers.

If you do get that far and there's a picture, try this - it won't hurt. Go to Device Manager and uninstall your display adapter (video card). To do this, right-click My Computer, choose Properties, click the Hardware tab, click the Device Manager button, open the + sign in front of Display Adapters and right-click and choose Uninstall for every device listed in Display Adapters. You should only have one, but there may be two.

Then restart. It will find your graphics card and will reinstall it using drivers in the system. If it does the same thing at startup, we will want to update/renew the video drivers that were meant for your system.

We'll get into that later. Post back to this thread what happened after you do the Safe Mode/Uninstall video adapter thing.

If it didn't work and you need updated/replacement drivers, you'll need to go back into Safe Mode with Networking and download the driver package to your desktop, run the exe, then uninstall the video adapter again in Device Manager and reboot.

This happened to me about 6 month s ago with a new laptop.

If the screen at least comes up to where you can start in safe mode choose it -- and then walk away for a while. It took almost 2 hours for that option to come up last time, but it finally did. Patience is key here. 

Once it starts in safe mode, you will likely have to reinstall your backup disc you were supposed to make when you first set up your computer. (I didnt make one of course and had to call the manufacturer who express mailed me one.)

My problem was indeed a bad hard drive though.

Good luck.  

Have you changed anything recently? Installed, uninstalled.. updated... anything at all???

I don't think a fan would cause anything, unless it became lose and flew around cutting up cables and such.............. and that seems unlikely lol... 

Sounds like the BIOS is loading and then stops... so... maybe it's a hard drive issue?? I'll look around to see what info I can find... if anything, I'm just trying to bump up your topic since it sucks when your computer doesn't work... 

Come on hardware experts!