I experienced a similar problem with my Dell XP desktop about three months ago. It worked fine the previous day, and I shut it down normally that evening like I always do. But the following morning, when I pressed the power button to boot it up, nothing happened. I heard a beep, but the internal cooling fan would not come on, and the DVD tray would not slide out when I pressed the eject button. Fortunately, it was a Sunday morning, and my techie friend, who works during the week, was available and was able to visit me to check out my suddenly dead computer. He noticed that the front panel power indicator light was flashing, but otherwise, the computer seemed to be dead and would not boot up no matter how many times he tried. He finally concluded that either the motherboard or power supply were shot, and that it would not make any sense to fix the computer, if it could even be fixed at all, because XP was no longer supported, and I would be better off setting up the refurbed Windows 7 desktop that I had recently acquired from the Texas-based Computers for the Blind organization, which was sitting untouched in its carton, ready for just such a contingency. He simply swapped out the old box and connected all the wires and cables to the new box, and I was back in business. By coincidence, the new computer was also a Dell desktop almost identical to the dead one, and because it came with NVDA and a demo version of JAWS 15 already installed, I was ready to go. I upgraded my SMA from JAWS 9 to JAWS 16, updated my Open Book SMA from Open Book 7 to Open Book 9, for which Freedom Scientific charged me a total of $650, and configured Windows Live Mail, which also came pre-installed. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to obtain a backup computer to bail me out in the event my original one failed, and I am using it right now to compose this message.
Gerald From: Tom Behler Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2015 10:55 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Very Strange Issue With Old Windows XP Computer Hello, everyone. I have an old Windows XP computer that I use for logging as a ham radio operator, and I have just experienced a very strange problem with this computer. The computer worked fine last night, but this morning, when I turn on the computer, I can’t get to any of the programs on the machine. If I turn on the computer, I can hear the hard drive start to engage, but after waiting for a few seconds, nothing happens, other than a double beep which I’m sure indicates something. … Jaws will not come up, so I can’t read the screen. And, I don’t have any sighted assistance here to look at the screen. Has anyone experienced this sort of thing before, and if so, can you tell me what might of happened? Most important, how do you get the computer back into normal operation? Dr. Tom Behler from Michigan
