Machine does not send signal to monitor

[Zakman3]

Hi all,

I've been trying to fix a thorny issue that's cropped up on my home-brew desktop. The machine is spec'ed below:

AMD X2 Dual Core 3800+
2 GB PC-3200 DDR RAM (1 GB Corsair, 1 GB Crucial, 4 x 512 sticks)
Asus A8N-E mobo (the none-SLI one)
Antec Sonata II case with 450w PSU
WD 36GB SATA 10K RPM
1 x WD 100GB, 1 x WD 120 GB (both 7200 RPM)
Asus 52x CD-ROM
16x DVD-RW
2 x 120mm fans, Win XP Professional w/SP2
NVidia 7600 GT- BFG, dual DVI
NEC 18" MultiSync LCD

The problem is simple- I press the power button, the machine starts up, all the fans start whirring, lights start blinking, BUT- the monitor does not initialize. It is hooked up via DVI to my BFG 7600GT.

A silent Sapphire card was replaced by this new 7600GT around mid-December. It's been working beautifully since then. In the last couple of days, the monitor failed to initialize several times on start-up, but rebooting fixed the problem. Now it doesn't initialize at all.

I have tried the following:

1/ Used a different monitor, with a different VGA cable. Tested both ports on the video card. No luck.

2/ Swapped out the NVidia 7600GT for a Sapphire ATI silent card (which I had removed only last month for the new 7600GT)- still no luck.

3/ Tried booting with 0-4 sticks of different RAM.

The 7600GT does not have a separate power connector. I've swapped the default fan for a Zalman silent fan unit, and plugged that in to the motherboard's chipset fan connector (removed the chipset fan that came with the mobo for a silent heatsink years ago).

The only thing that I can think of at this point is that, for some reason, the PCI-Express circuit has blown, and as a result, no power is being supplied to the PCI-Express slot. I can confirm that the CPU fan, PSU fan, VGA fan and two 120mm system fans all work perfectly.

Any help would be very much appreciated- thanks!

 

[Jiggz]

Turning fans, hdd and other drives and lit lights does not necessarily indicate a working system. It could be a PSU, CPU or mobo. You need to go back to basic with barebone system and fire it up. If you have another system, you need to check the PSU or other peripherals into a known working system. This is the only way to find out the problem.

 

[stogez]

Try a PCI card if you have one. If that doesn't work, its probably the mobo thats shot.

 

[Zakman3]

Thanks guys- I'd forgotten about trying a PCI card. Will do that tommorrow.

Do you really think it could be the PSU/CPU? Why would they suddenly stop working over a couple of days?

 

[dfuze]

I had the same problem 2 weeks ago with the same symptoms (everything powered up but no monitor signal). I didn't have a pci video card to test the pci-e slot itself, but all my components worked in my wife's pc, so that made the culprit the motherboard. What is it lately? Yours is like the 3rd or 4th I've read this month with the same type of issues, and like me they were all Asus boards. I'm starting to think they were all programmed to die at the beginning of the year! Thank goodness for their 3 year warranty!

 

[AstroGuardian]

Sounds like MOBO to me. Actually a blown capacitor may do the problem. Check the capacitors whether they are fine. They can also die because of bad current. So maybe the PSU is also bad.

Try with a PCI vga card like somebody stated before.