red light blinks and no boot for Compaq Deskpro EN

I recently adopted a 866 MHz Compaq Deskpro EN, sans hard disk and spent
last weekend souping it up as a gift for my folks. Installed a 40 Gb
hard disk, replaced a broken floppy drive, added a modem, more memory,
and a HP CD-Writer Plus (in addition to the CD-ROM drive it already
had). Purchased and installed Windows XP. Life is good.

This weekend I fired up the machine again to do some additional software
twiddling and ran into problems. The first time I booted the machine, I
was able to log into Windows. Everything seemed fine until I started
using the HP CD-Writer Plus. While accessing a CD-RW disk, the machine
suddenly powered itself down. The power light on the front of the box
blinks red.

Now, whenever I try to power up the box nothing happens. I just get the
blinking red light. Cold silence - no fan activity, nothing on the screen.

I have three wild guesses about what the problem could be -- (1) there's
a short someplace, (2) I've installed more hardware than the power
supply can support, (3) the power supply is dead and needs to be
replaced. My hardware knowledge is primitive, so I could use some
advice -- do any or all of these sound possible? If so, how can I
determine which is my problem? Or, are there other possibilities?

Thanks in advance for any help!

-- Don

 

A power supply problem seems to be the most likely scenario. Some of the
DeskPro EN systems use standard form factor ATX power supplies. Others do not,
using instead a different 24-pin power connector. If the former, you can check
out the power supply theory by attaching another power supply to the motherboard
only, i.e. do not attach any other devices except maybe the floppy. Disconnect
all the other devices from the Compaq power supply first... Ben Myers

 

Thanks for the advice. Since I don't have a second power supply handy,
would it be a reasonable test to unplug all devices and the motherboard
from the existing power supply and attempt to turn it on? If the fan
starts spinning, I'll assume that the problem isn't the power supply.
Otherwise, I'll go pick up a new one.

If this is an obvious question forgive me. thanks again

 

Keep the mainboard connected. You cannot start an ATX PSU without it.
(Well, you can but it requires shortening the correct two lines in the
cable). The test is one-sided: If it works without all the additional
devices then it is the PSU. If it still does not work then you know
not much more.

Not too obvious and there are details like the mainboard being
needed (if ATX).

Arno

 

:cry:

Hi everybody !

I have a deskpro allso but there is no OS on the system also it start
up with the compaq logo on the screen plus F10 for setup and F12 fo
booting from a network. After that the 3 choices for installing W9
will come up. But here is the problem the keyboard does not do
thing, I have changed it to another sysem and it works fine

I tried to open the case but even that I can't do, it seems that th
upper case is locking somewhere on the richt backside of the system
looking from the frontside

I used I boot floppy and a W98se setup cd-rom. I have used it o
several other pc systems and they are working fine for some year
now, so I am a little lost on this one hihi (I never work with thes
deskpro"s before) but I like the size of them.
Can you help me on my way to 2 working systems pls ??

Tks and regards from Ruud From the Netherland