PC Wont Make It To POST

Hello SevenForumers I require your assistance today, while trying to provide assistance to someone else.

I am (attempting) to repair a computer for a friend. This is not the first time that I have worked on this machine, and am familiar with it. However, this time it has a problem which I can not fix.
This machine is a Dell Dimension E520. When you turn it on, it has one whirl of fan noise, tries to get past the Dell loading screen (bios information), has a "click" sound emitted, and then restarts. It never makes it past this initial screen. So far I have tried

• Unseating, and reseating the Ram. Tried individual sticks, dual combos, and all 4 at once. Nothing made a difference.
• Uninstalling the video card and using onboard graphics.
• Unplugging the Hard Drive.
• Tried unplugging hard drive, and inserted Windows XP Disk.

I am at wits end as to how to proceed. Does anybody have an idea of what this could be?

System Specs: Dell Dimension E520, Windows Vista x86, 250GB Seagate 7200 RPM HD, nVidia 9400GT, Intel Core2 Duo CPU

Thanks in advance

Extensa

See if you can run Speecy or SIW and find out more info on CPU.
How about the fans?..................working ok?
Take hood off, make sure you ground yourself and plug it in to see if you can pin point where sound is coming from.
IMHO...that's what I would do.

Pull everything except video. Try to make it to post.
If not, swap video.
Click might be hard drive. Click of death.
Fan noise could be from PSU, cpu, video, or additional fan unit.

Try disconnecting all drives and remove the graphics card (use the built-in graphics for testing purposes). Try one stick of RAM in the socket nearest the CPU. Power up. Do you get as far as OS not found?

@ Howling Woods - Cant make it into Windows to run Speccy.. Sorry All fans appear to be working okay.

@ Lemur - Pulled everything (minus GPU), HD included. Click is still present

@ Dwarf - Tried without Video Card, no difference. Still dont make it past this screen: Attachment 93214

The progress bar makes it to the end, then the computer restarts.

@Thomas - I can't get into the bios settings. The computer restarts before it will load them...

Before you get to this screen, you are not offered F2 for bios?

Please see if clicking sound is coming from PSU. A bad power supply could be the culprit.

Okay.. So from what I can tell, the click is NOT from the the PS.

I am offered F2 and F12, however I cant get into either of them

Lemur said:

Before you get to this screen, you are not offered F2 for bios?

We have Dells at work. The options for entering the BIOS or boot menu (F2/F12) only appear AFTER the progress bar has completed. Try resetting the BIOS to its defaults. Since you can't access the BIOS, you will need to do this by temporarily removing the motherboard battery.