Hi,

First post on these forums. Let me know if I left out critical information.

I have a Dell Dimension E510, with Windows Vista Home Premium.
4GB memory.

Recently, I was browsing Yahoo. I use Firefox, and had installed Crawler Web Security Guard. It warned me about an advertisement for the yieldmanager.com domain. It has been warning me repeatedly over the past couple of days. It adds a toolbar to Firefox.

In any case, Firefox grays out, and usually a pop-up window shows and you can either block the offending domain, or, just let it load. This time there was no pop-up, and I couldn't alt-tab to it.

I started shutting things down, and trying to reboot. It doesn't reboot. Nothing shows on the monitor. It's possible that I hit the sleep/hibernate key on my keyboard.

I've also put in the Dell OS reinstallation DVD disc, hoping it would boot off of that. No luck there.

Any ideas on how I can get this thing rebooted?

I can see the various indicator lights flashing, and the disk activity lights for the HD, and DVD. So, it's at least plugged in. I've even tried unplugging the power and letting it sit for a few minutes before trying to boot again.

Any advice is appreciated.

Have you put the Dell CD in, rebooted, and pressed F12 as the Dell screen showed up? If that gives you a menu, try booting from your CD drive (but don't reinstall Windows just yet).

Also, here's a link to how to run the Vista Startup Repair utility: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial148.html

I have tried the CD/DVD, and rebooted. But, no Dell screen, no nothing.

At this point there are many suspicions: HD, video card, monitor. If anything showed up on the monitor, , I could at least have a clue.

Looks like I have to take the silly thing in to get diagnosed, and probably get fixed.

Can you get to the boot options screen (by pressing F12)? Does it show any choices (if so, what does it show)?

If you can't boot from a CD, can't boot to Windows, and can't access the boot options menu - then you'll probably have to take it in to the shop.

John,

Thanks for the advice, but, no joy. I leaned on the F12 key from the second I started to reboot, until the HD went quiet. I did hear some feedback sound like when you hold a key so long, it tells you the buffer is full.

But, other than that, nothing has changed.

Looks like the Geek Squad gets some of my business.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the problem was my video card. It was OEM to my Dell, a nVidia 7300LT.

I replaced it with an nVidia 8500, which has support for Directx 10, which the older card did not.

Thanks for the help offered.