My computer won't boot- A less than obvious simple fix.

As many have encountered, my issue was a non-booting machine with beep codes on an Inspiron 580. At that moment I hadn't the time to investigate, I'll use my laptop.

Since there are 3 of us in my house, others tried to log on only to encounter the same fate. With other options at their disposal, they go to another device. Now it is apparent that no-one but myself will resolve this.

I find out that I can decipher the beep codes here at the Dell site. So I attempt to boot my machine only to have it either:

1) power on but without video signal- remaining in this permanant state

2) power on, sometimes making it to the Dell screen before power cycles a few times ending in the same state as 1)

Never even a beep, therefore I couldn't even look up the code!

Occasiionaly I was allowed to attemt the F12 diagnostics, but after startingit, the video was botched up and I went to the same state as 2). I looked into the BIOS but saw no issue.

Reading that there could be something dislodged within the hardware, I opened the case to inspect. I also got the vacuum to remove dust- standard procedure!

To end this story, I found nothing ajar, but I especially noticed a rather dust filled CPU fan/heatsink. Wouldn't you know that disassembling and removing the buildup from both the fan and heatsink proved successful!! So I imagine the CPU was likely overheating and shutting down.

A suggestion to check this never surfaced as a solution. So I suggest to occasionally remove that heatsink dust buildup.