Having trouble turning computer on

[sarcasticone]

A coworker is having trouble with his home PC. The other day while his daughter was online, the computer just went blank. She didn't do anything that unusual, it just went blank. Now when you go to turn the computer on, the fans and everything inside the tower turn on but his monitor just displays "No Signal". He pulled the battery out and put it back in to reset the CMOS and after that the computer booted up and was running fine. He noticed the 2 screws holding the cable to his ATI graphics card had broke (common problem with the 9600XT AIW) so he turned the computer off while he found replacement screws to fix the cable. Once he had the cable reattached to the graphics card, the computer wouldn't boot again. The monitor displayed the same thing as it did before.

He called a computer store and they suggested he try replacing the battery to see if that helps. So he was planning on buying a new battery today and trying that, I haven't heard if that worked or not. I told him I would see if anyone on this board could provide any other ideas of what to check or what could be wrong.

The board is a Intel D865PERL. I believe it has 512MB of RAM, ATI 9600XT AIW graphics card, don't remember what processor and it's running Windows XP Home.

Any thought would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[sarcasticone]

anyone have any suggestions?

 

[corkyg]

Try a different graphics card. If it works, then replace the card.

 

[sarcasticone]

He would but he doesn't have another graphics card to try.

He doesn't mind having to go buy a new part to fix the problem, he just wants to make sure what it is first instead of just throwing money at it and buying something that doesn't fix his problem.

Is there any other way to check if it is the graphics card?

 

[deathwalker]

Well....a friend would lend him his!

 

[sarcasticone]

I thought about taking one out of one of my computers but I'm currently reloading everything on my main computer so I've been using my other computer that I usually don't use much. Maybe once I have my main computer back we can try using the card from my other computer.

In the meantime though, I was just wondering if there is anything else he can try or test?

Thanks

 

[Modular]

Logically, the Video card is what is causing the problem. Check that first.

 

[sarcasticone]

sorry for delayed responce, I forgot about this thread.

After getting my main computer reloaded I took the video card from my other computer over to his house and tried that and nothing changed.

We swapped out power supplies with an extra one I had just to make sure it wasn't that, and it wasn't.

He was getting so frustrated with it he said screw and just ordered a new motherboard.

This time he got a ASUS motherboard (can't remember the exact model) but he's running a P4 3.0 socket478. So one day after work I went over there and replaced the board and reloaded his windows. Everything has been working fine since then.

Still don't know what exactly was the problem with the motherboard but replacing it solved the issue.