Hey guys, just wanted your expertise on something. I was just using my custom built desktop a few minutes ago, and I was watching a movie from my DVD burner drive. All of a sudden, my monitor stops receiving power or something and turns to black with the power light flashing (meaning standby). I look at the lights on my desktop and the green light for the DVD burner is staying on as well as the loading and power light. I tried to CTRL+ALT+DEL and nothing, I press the restart button on the desktop and nothing, hold down the power button for 10 seconds and it shuts off; I waited a few minutes, turn it back on and all the lights are still on. CPU fan is working, all the lights are working for the computer are working, but stuff isn't getting their power and the computer is just making an unchanging sound, nothing to indicate its doing its usual process of power on.

Whats going on here, did the motherboard or CPU die or something?

Please guys, I could use all the help and advice you can offer!

Comp Specs (Built about 6 years ago):
Pentium 4 3.0 GHz processor
1 GB memory
ATI X800 video card
Brand New Corsair PS (<1 month)

Process of elimination. Switch graphics cards to one you know works and see if you can get into bios. If not try another cpu, a different ram stick, etc.

Most of the parts are relatively new though and have been working fine up until now. The video card was purchased 2 years ago, power supply is brand new, RAM is about a year old. The things that I was using when this happened was my DVD burner drive, which is about 6 years old and the program VLC.

When the computer all of a sudden did what it did, the DVD burner drive light was on and wouldn't turn off till now. The keyboard lights are off, but the LED lights inside the computer are working, and so are the fans (not all of them, not sure if they weren't working from before). And, like I said earlier, the CPU fan is working and I can still adjust the speed from the front panel.

Please guys, give me feedback. For the computer to turn on, but not really start up or distribute power to all parts, what could that be?

I had the same prob a few months ago...specs:
P4 630 3.0 Ghz
Gateway OEM

Exact same prob...during operation everything suddenly dies...then on
reboot the mobo, cpu, and case fans ran fine, the cd and dvd lights up,
the keyboard and mouse do nothing.......
After several days of pulling out my hair...and getting nowhere...I took
a deep breath and decided to logically troubleshoot the system.....
Fans, and portions of mobo works? = 12v good
no boot? = possible psu prob, or cpu prob, or mobo prob.
replace ram, one stick at a time...same prob
replaced video card....same prob.
note: even with bad ram, system should go to bios , given the cmos and
battery is in good shape...IF all other periphrials are working.

I replaced the psu....same prob.
I replaced the cpu....same prob.
I replaced the ram...same prob
So....I pulled the mobo to the bench and ...'voila !' prob solved....?????

Looking back inside the case, I discovered a small dust mote had become
lodged behind the mobo, shorting it out on the data and control from the
cpu, but not the 12v rail.

I cleaned the case, really good, and rebuilt the system using the original
parts and only lost one stick of ram in the process.....

good luck, you may need it....