Quote Originally Posted by ChadS View Post
If the motherboard doesn't beep then it's either faulty RAM (or DIMM slot), badly-seated or damaged CPU, or the graphics pathway is garbled. Those are the only 3 things checked at POST. After that BIOS takes over and it handles disks, NICs, etc.
But would the disks still spin up if it wasn't actually getting past the POST?


Quote Originally Posted by Jayson View Post
Monitor isn't the issue. I have two of them for display and both work with my laptop.
So, you have two monitors plugged in? One is HDMI and the other is VGA? While doing your diagnostics, did you have both monitors plugged in? I would recommend only plugging in the VGA monitor when testing. Mixing an analog and digital signal can cause some confusion.


Quote Originally Posted by Jayson View Post
It powers on and there is movement in fans, HD and everything else
If you power it on and just let it run for a few minutes, do the fans and the HD continue running?

Are there LED lights inside the case that light up and remain lit? How about the LED lights on the outside of the tower? I don't know about that model, but certain Dell models are infamous for problems with this or that. Many times the behavior of the main power button's LED light can help you find out if there's a hardware issue. You could also try calling Dell.