Dead Computer

As of this morning, my trusty Dell desktop appears to be dead. There had been a few symptoms. Occasionally it failed to boot into Windows Vista without going through a Windows repair cycle. But this time it is a hardware failure. It does not bring up the BIOS. The beep from the Power On Self Test is absent. The green power light at the rear of the computer and the orange light on the motherboard both indicate that the power supply is working. But turning on the power causes the power switch to turn orange, rather than its usual green, and nothing else happens. There is a deathly silence, as not even the cooling fans spring into action. Following some YouTube videos, I have tried cleaning the interior, checking the cables, removed and replaced the RAM. I tried to reset the CMOS, but there is no jumper or any apparent means to remove the battery. I refuse to pay for expensive repairs to a 7-year old computer, so I think it is time to replace it.

My plan is to get my files copied from the hard disks to an external drive and then buy a new computer, and copy my files to the new machine.

In a way, the timing is good. Google no longer supports updates to Chrome on Windows Vista, And two weeks ago Cisco made an upgrade to the online meeting software I need to use (WebEx),so that it no longer works on Windows Vista. I guess it was time for me to get a new computer. But I hate to throw away an otherwise good machine. Now I only need to discard a non-functional piece of junk. It makes the decision  much easier.