I have a Compaq evo d310 that won't boot up. I was told when I had it checked that the power supply was bad. So, I have replaced the power supply on the unit and it's still doing the same thing. I know enough to get me by but am not a wizard with this stuff. I would like to try to fix it if anyone has any suggestions. The unit will act like it is starting up....the power light comes on the front of the unit but gives no beeps....the monitor is black....the cd drive is starting with a blinking light but then nothing happens. I can't get anything to show on the screen of even trying to boot. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am running Windows XP on it. The last thing that happened to it was this.....I was working on an email and left it open....got up to do an errand in the office and turned back around to a blue screen saying that the win32 driver was corrupt.....insert the recovery disk and restart....but I did get the disk.....tried to restart....and nothing happened. Any suggestions?

Thanks!
JanaWhen rebooting do you get the COMPAQ Logo in RED? If not then you have a problem possibly with the main board, since it is not going through POST.

I would disconnect all drives and just leave the motherboard connected to the power supply etc and power it up...( Any change ) If so then a drive problem possibly, if not them definately a main board issue.

step 2 would be to remove any additional PCI slot cards ( but leave the video card -- only if the motherboard doesnt have integrated video) I think the 310 has the integrated video so you should be able to remove all PCI cards. ( Keep track as to their slot location in case we find the culprit here.) Boot the system with just the power supply and motherboard....still same issue?

Ok if you have more than 1 RAM stick installed remove all sticks and insert just 1 stick into DIMM 0 and boot. Same issue, power down and remove stick and try other stick(s) one by one in this way to eliminate a bad stick pulling the board down. If this dosnt do it then you may be looking at a bad motherboard.

If a bad motherboard and you want to troubleshoot further, you can BUY a POST Diagnostic card to plug into the PCI slot and read the Hex code on this card to se where the board is hanging.

If the heatsink was packed with dirt and lint then it is possible that the CPU could have overheated. If you have a spare Socket 478 CPU of the same FSB speed you can try swapping that out to see.

The other issue that EARLY EVO's had was that they got a bad shipment of power capacitors for a period of time that CAUSED these capacitors to swell and leak. Look at the tops of the capacitors...most will have an X on their tops created to vent a capacitor that breaks down internally of gas pressure from cooked electrolyte oil. Capacitors in case you dont know what they are come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the ones that are the troube makers for many HPs and some Dells are the power Caps that are metal cylendrical parts with X on their aluminum tops. If the tops are not flat and bowed outwards or you see a crusty black, brown, yellow, or white residue on the top of any of them and not the nice flat aluminum clean X surface then you have had a major component failure.

When capacitors break down they can do one of 4 things: ( (1) Explode giving off a fishy smelling stink, (2) Leak out their tops and throw their microfarad values off from where they should be causing a loss of power conditioning between the power supply or voltage regulator and the components and in this case the direct power feeds to the CPU, (3) Leak and short out internally as the aluminum foil that is suspended in the electrolyte oil is gone and gravity and electromagnetism causes the foil plates to connect..(( Usually the capacitor explodes when this happens)), although if the connection is made and not enough gas pressure it will not, (4) Leak out of their bases slowly over time through the rubber stopper at the base of the can ( very rare to leak past the stopper unless the capacitor is physically lifted itself off the board and usually cocked at an angle pointing itself out from the others that are flush to the circuit board.)

Capacitors have been known to burn up power supplies as well and voltage REGULATORS when they fail.

It could be so many things. Hopefully through TROUBLESHOOTING with these steps you might know better as to what you are up against.

Good Luck!