Fans working, but no lights at front & comp won't boot up!!

PLEASE HELP ME!

Don't know anything about computers really so apologise if this problem already posted elsewhere - I am desperate.

On computer other night, i heard a popping sound come from the tower unit, at which point the computer shut itself down. It will no longer boot up when I plug it in. When plug in, i can hear fans working but there are no lights coming on. The power button no longer switches the machine on, although when i keep it held in, it will shut the machine off.

(Before computer finally shut itself down, it had been struggling to boot itself up for a few weeks. When I switched it on, it almost stopped, before jigging itself into action).

Computer is probably coming up to being nearly 10 years old, so could it have just "given up". Obviously, I'd like to have a go at retrieving my work that is still on there somehow.

Sorry if none of this makes any sense, but thanks for reading it.

does anything at all come up on the screen? if you get nothing then i would guess its the power supply (its the part that i can think of that might make a popping noise [caps dry up and blow up after a long time, the power supply has the biggest ones])

if your getting nothing and its been working all that time i would assume something gave up as you put it, with a computer that old I wouldn't bother replacing the broken part, you should just go out and buy a new computer then take the hard drive out of this broken computer and put it in the new one, then you should be able to copy over all your files, and since you say you don't know anything about this you probably want to find someone to do it for you (its easy though and its not a lot of work)

Yes, Id get someone who knows about computers to pop in another power supply. If it still wont boot Id suspect the motherboard unfortunately. I hope its the power supply in your case as its a cheap easy fix...

Good luck

well sounds like the hard drive to me.The motherbord well dont thing so be rare it would go.The power suply good thing to change first cheap to.