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Title is pretty self-explanatory. When I boot this old Dell tower with any monitor (VGA of course), well the first time I tried to boot it nothing happened on the monitor. When I rebooted it from that state it did as the title states. It gets to the Dell logo and then multicolored lines appear kind of spazz out until the screen goes essentially black with few multicolored specs.

I think this is a hardware issue but I need to salvage this PC and get it going again. Is there any way I can fix this? Maybe the mobo battery has died?

EDIT: After powering off from the multicolored lines state it won't register anything on the monitor. It emits 4 beeps and then 2 beeps.

EDIT: It alternates between reboot cycling from the windows logo and after a few cycles it is beeping and displaying a black monitor. Front lights display 3,4, during black screen and beeping. Trying to initiate that sequence again so I can write down the beeps

EDIT: It ran CHDISC check or something... Now it displays the lights, (1, 3, 4) which apparently is not a proper code. Black screen.

BEEPING SEQUENCE: Emits 1 long beep, 1 long beep, 2 short beeps, 2 short beeps. I realize this isn't exactly a proper code so I'm not sure if I'm just interpretting the beeps incorrectly. The way I recorded the beeps above is the way I heard them.

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It does flash the lights 3,4, while starting

This indicates a memory failure:

Memory modules are detected, but a memory failure has occurred.

  • If you have two or more memory modules installed, remove the modules, reinstall one module (see "Memory"), and then restart the computer. If the computer starts normally, reinstall an additional module. Continue until you have identified a faulty module or reinstalled all modules without error.

  • If available, install properly working memory of the same type into your computer (see "Memory").

  • If the problem persists, contact Dell for technical assistance.

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Source Dell™ Dimension™ 3100/E310 Service Manual

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