Ok, so the Dell Inspiron 620s seems to finally be deadski

I have a green light in back by the power cord. I have a solid amber light on the motherboard. I have a blinking orange light on the power-on button. I have no indication of a fan or disk drive running.  I have already done the unplug-it-all and press the power button, then plug it all back in and try again. Didn't work this time. Have reseated all the connections. No change. Gandalf appears to be deadski.

I am ~assuming~ this is a power supply unit failure? Would that be a safe guess?  I am inclined to try to find a replacement for it. Other than just going to Amazon, can anyone recommend a place where I can get one that's not going to be a cheap (as in flimsy) knock-off for a good price?

How old is it? Could it possibly be the CMOS battery? https://computer.howstuffworks.com/how-to-know-when-computer-battery-is-dead.htm

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For components, I like https://www.novatech.co.uk/  .  They have a sales number that you can call and talk to a knowledgeable human.  And a wide variety of parts.  I'm sure they can help you figure out what's happening over the phone. 

I'm guessing that the watch battery has died and therefore the motherboard can't kick off the boot process.   

Snap!

Ah, did not try that! Will replace the little battery.

It's vintage 2011.

Edit:  Didn't make a difference. When I plug in the machine I can see a fan kind of jerk a bit, but then it doesn't run. Disk doesn't run, either. Got a blinking orange power light on the on-off key again, still orange on the board.

Oliver at Novatech would very much like to sell me a new computer. 

Says if I can pop in to their place in Portsmouth they can try to diagnose it - says there could be a number of different things that have failed. That's a bit far, unfortunately.

Tried one more time - another new battery. Same. Fan jogs when I plug in the power cord, blinking orange on the start button, solid orange on the card. Powered off, powered on at the start button, same thing.

Says if I can pop in to their place in Portsmouth

I highly recommend a visit to their showroom! Even though it's a 1.5 hour trip from my house, I've been twice.  It's full of liquid cooled PC's with transparent cases and flashing light RAM .  I'm with Oliver and suggest the Hydro Raptor as a replacement

There's also this cool underwater pipeline manufacturer next door, and the prison for French people....

Hahahaha

Ok, since getting a reconditioned machine is probably about the same cost as getting the parts (nevermind the cost to pay someone else to repair it - assuming I can find someone reliable to diagnose it) I'm looking on Amazon.co.uk.

They have a number of reconditioned machines.


Gandalf is:

Intel  core i3 2100 CPU at 3.1ghz
6 GB of Ram
1696 mb graphics memor
1632 MB shared system memory
64 bit operating system
2 cores
917 gb hard drive

I am assuming (?) that any of the Intel core systems that are like i5 are going to be faster? And that a 4 core machine would be better than a 1 core machine?   I assume also that I don't want to decrease the amount of RAM that I already have?

Unfortunately all the reconditioned machines come with Windows10 so I'm going to be stuck with that. I just don't want to get something that's going to get all boggy on me and not let me stream my videos.

You should try to get one that has a solid state disk.  They boot up in less than a second.  And don't settle for less memory.  And Windows 10 is way better than windows 7. 

Yeah, get something with 8GB ram and run Windows 10. Nothing else matters much for your uses honestly, even an SSD.

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Nothing else matters much for your uses honestly, even an SSD.

Could be true

I love the speed of my SSD.  I gave up much greater storage capacity for a smaller SSD, and I love the trade-off.  I wouldn't go back to a HD.

I don't care how fast it boots up. I do care that it has enough "oomph" to run all the software and do the streaming stuff.

So, cores don't matter too much?

I don't care how fast it boots up. I do care that it has enough "oomph" to run all the software and do the streaming stuff.

So, cores don't matter too much?

What things do you use your computer for, and are they ever at the same time?

This seems like a solid review of what the different processors do, and where you will see performance gains.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/best/best-intel-processor-3517396

For streaming you don't need a fast HD/SSD, but if you want to do heavy duty photo editing you would want one.

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