Thanks for your prayers.
Find another computer with similar - better specs that needs a HD, and stick the HD in it, and take the old thing to a recycle bin, and toss it in.
It could be that moving the mobo reseated the memory. You might just have a funky DIMM in there.
No mystery here. Junk it and buy a Mac.
you may have bought some time but with the capacitor going its only a matter of time. Go to the MFG website find the service guide, it will tell you how to do the rip down, replace the capacitors, clean it up then back it up. BTW get the hard drive diagnostic program from the HD MFG and make sure its fine. Lastly check the ram with a memory checker program.
Dell has a dos level hardware diagnostic suite, you should see if there is one for your system.
Could have been some bad memory or mobo shorting on the case.
Use memtest86 to see if the memory is okay.
If your motherboard has swollen capacitors, I think I would plan on rebuilding that computer real soon.
In my younger days, I wanted to use one of the new fangled VGA cards, but the bios chip wouldn't support it. I had to de-solder the bios chip and solder the new on in. That's they way we did it back then and we liked it!
It’s not a mystery. Obama and Eric Holder are spying on you using your own computer.
Bad drive. you booted under the right temperature.
Get another one. less than $100 for any decent drive.
My 840 died a similiar death. Loved my sony. It’s a motherboard issue. I moved the drives to another computer.
I miss it’s quiet operation. ( my 1st video editor, and a cool case)
Go to this website and scroll down untill you see these two listed.They will run even if you don’t have a hard drive...
http://puppylinux.org/main/Puplet%20for%20special%20features.htm
EVANGELISM
ChurchPup
A Christian Puppy derivative that focuses on Bible study, office applications, internet, and email, but also includes applications for multimedia presentations, audio and video editing, and musical notation.
ShepherdPup
ShepherdPup is a compact freely distributable [live CD] for Christian evangelism.
I always check the power supply first when funky stuff occurs. Smell the unit for fried components....it's a ‘dead’ give away.
But I agree with Keith in Iowa, move the HD over to a new/second hand rig that can be bought for less than a good PSU. Unless you like wasting your time on a PC 6 years past it's prime ;)
Bad capacitor = bad news. Start shopping for new system.
With all the work you did, it could have been something as simple as a grounding contact with some corrosion on it that got cleaned up.
I heard a funny story about how if our cars were like Microsoft Windows, we could be driving down a highway and the car would suddenly stall for no reason and, once we came to a stop, simply restarting it fixes the problem and we can continue down the road again. There were some other analogies, too. Hope everything keeps running smoothly for you.
I can remember when there was no such thing as PCs. All computing got done on mainframes that took up a huge room and programs got into it by loading a huge deck of card-punch stock into a reader and running it through. Three-hundred baud dumb terminals were the norm then we went to 1200!. Now here I type on a laptop that has more memory than some of those mainframes had. It's an HP Pavilion running Windows XP that we bought over seven years ago. When it kicks the dust, I guess I'll upgrade, but until then...
First of all, if it has popped a cap, you are inevitably out of luck... it will crash and burn some day soon.
However, removing the MB may have improved a bad grounding problem (when you re-tightened, the ground was reestablished)... OR when you hooked the power cable back up, it may have cleared a corrosion break in the clip... lots of things could explain the mystery. Just be thankful it is having a last gasp so you can easily get your stuff off of it. Thank YHWH for small favors :)
WallyWorld or Staples will have a nice 64bit Acer for around $350 or so... which will kick your current system’s butt for breakfast.