i_ruv_Vista

OK, first off, my computer is a dell dimension 4550, roughly 4 years old.
It came with 512 MB ram installed, and a 64 MB video card. the memory has
been upgraded to 1 GB and the video card replaced with a Nvidea geforce
6800xt 256mb/128 bit agp video card.

with that in mind, the problem is that it wont start up beyond the motherboard led lighting up. also, when i plug it in after letting it sit
awhile, i press the power button and the power led and both the disc
drive LEDs show up for less than a second, never to blink again
unless i unplug it, let the board discharge, and plug it back in.

another thing, when this first started, the power button would show
a solid amber/orange light. i read online that it means a power related
failure. since then, i have bought a replacement psu. it did not solve the
problem. so i reinstalled the older one, and now i can't even get the solid
orange light anymore.

one last thing, when asked a friend at church(who is a computing whiz)
he said its possible that my bios has crashed.(before going on a rant about
Wow and bear bombs, and how hes a level 69 druid.....)

whatever the case may be, any help would be greatly appreciated.

i_ruv_Vista

UPDATE: well, after some tinkering around,(unpluggin stuff like cards and drives like i should have done in the first place) i have found that when only my video card is unplugged, everything starts up just fine.

in fact, the fan on the card turns on.....doesnt it have to be plugged
in to do that?

well anyway, about 15 seconds after i plug it in and everything starts
doing their thing, i hear 2 beeps. so.....thats where i am......

thanks in advance for any and all help.

Madcatz

to be a little more clear on whats happening, you unplug your video card from the slot, from the power connector, or unplug the video cable?

being you said the fan turns on, am guessing its still connected to the motherboard and you just unplugged the power connector to it, then 15 seconds after you plugged the power back into the video card and everything stops working again?

also to help, can you please post your system specs, processor, mobo, drives, power supply brand/model/wattage?

dai

when you upgrade the video card it usually means upgrading the power supply
did you replace or upgrade the psu

i_ruv_Vista

ok ill be more clear macatz. when i plug in everything except the graphics card
and plug in the power cord, everything works as it should, then after 15 seconds i hear 2 beeps. everything keeps running thereafter until i cut power.

and though im not sure of all my specs, the processor is a pentium 4 2.5 ghz,
i have a dvd drive, and a cd-rw drive. the power supply is a nps-250kb, the one
it was shipped with. its wattage is 250.

and dai, it was about two years ago when the new graphics card was installed.
the power supply was not touched.

well ill keep searching around and tinkering. thx again.

dai

for agp your psu needs to be putting out a min of 18amps on the 12v+ line

Underclocker

250W is definitely too weak. It's normal for PSUs to die out over time. I learnt my lesson the hard way with two PSUs (a 350W and a 400W) blown over a period of 4 years when my system was no where near as power hungry as it is now. That 6800XT needs much more power than my original Ti4200.