No video output / video card or processor issue?

[dpid]

Hey guys,



Couple of days ago, I turned on my computer and worked on importing photos/editing them in photoshop. When completed, I turned off my computer.

Couple hours later, my dad turned on the computer to use internet. Well funny thing happened... there was no display on the monitor. I tried making sure hte picture settings on monitor was fine, so my contrast screen came up on my display. I restarted my computer and this time my monitor kept going into stanby, while it seems my computer got into the windows xp login screen.

I hooke this computer to my home enter. syste (since video card has svideo). Nothing came up. All this time, my computer turns on, accesses the hard drive and i think goes into the windows login.

What steps can I do now to find what the problem is?

I assume motherboard (chaintech 7kjd) is fine (or I would have heard many beeps?)

I think its a video card (xtasy nvidia ti200)

but after reading some posts, I feel that it might be the processor (athlon 1.2ghz)



My reasoning for thinking video card....
I would haev heard beep errors for motherboard if it were bad
I would have seen at least the display if processor is bad (at least the bios setup screen?)

Any suggestions? I unfort. don't have any parts lying aroung (no extra video cards, processors, computer screens).

Thanks!

 

[meltdown75]

I think with the ideal post, you hear 1 beep. So if you aren't hearing any, it isn't booting. I had the same problem a while back but it hasn't happened in a while. You might try reseating your video card, fiddling with the monitor connection, or cleaning the contacts on the card (use a pencil eraser). Also make sure your screw holding in your vid card isn't too tight - sometimes it can unseat the card enough to cause problems. You should also try resetting your CMOS by removing your battery and moving the jumper from 1-2 to 2-3 for about 10 seconds - do all this when powered down & unplugged. Could even be bad or fussy memory. Consequently since I went from 1 512mb stick to 2, I haven't had the problem. So in short I never technically solved the prob, but it stopped happening.

 

[ZYFER]

you keep mentioning it got into windows, did you actually hear the windows login sound?

 

[daniel49]

had a compaq last year would boot up at times and not others (would get no video) after swapping and testing each component a million times (slight exageration). Found all individual components were fine but motherboard was failing so one time it would boot next time it wouldn't.
kept wondering why I would hear no beeps.. turns out compaq didn't stick a speaker in there to beep...doh

salvaged all usable parts and built a new system out of it faster then ever now.
dan

 

[dpid]

zyfer,

I'm not actually sure it even gets into the login screen, I assumed since I saw the HD lights go on, thinking it was accessing it, then turning off. I believe I should not have assume that windows even logs in.

I think it is my MB, I tested another video card, and computer does not work

No beeps.
No power to ethernet card (no status lights are on)
no power to usb (my optical mouse doesn't light up, whereas it should if I got into windows logon..
Keyboard lights (caps lock, num lock) etc. cannot be toggled on (which should if I got into the windows logon screen)

I will buy a new MB and might as well a new processor.

Do I REALLY have to reinstall windows... or can I get away with installing a new MB and processor, and using the hard drive with windows loaded?

 

[resStealth]

haha i can help you here! i got a lappy from my friend that did the same thing. go into display and you will probably have two display adapters. switch to the other adapter, the one not being used. that should fix your problem

 

[jackschmittusa]

I have no idea what resStealth is talking about, so I can't comment there. The eraser trick is an old one that you must be very careful with today as newer card contacts are so thin, you can erase them away easily. (And never use an ink eraser - far too abrasive.) Do the fans in the system continue to run? Possible component failures include the PSU. You can try running with only the cpu, vidcard and 1 stick of ram; disconnect everything else (power and data cables), remove other cards. And yes, with a new mb, I would reinstall windows. Too many potential problems if you don't, and then you are back to trouble-shooting again.

 

[dpid]

Thanks for all your help.

I got a new mobo and the system is functional again!

On that matter, a question for you guys:

I got the Albatron KX18DS Pro mobo and installed it fine. When it does POST, it shows the processor as only 900mHz when in fact the processor is 1200mhz Athlon (not XP). The ram size shows up correctly as 512K.


The jumper setting for CPU Clock is default on 133/166/200 setting, so I believe its a setting I have to change on BIOS, I just am not sure.

Suggestions?


Thanks as usual!

 

[dpid]

sorry double post

 

[montag451]

change it to 166.

 

[KGB]

Sorry montag... set the FSB to 133 for that CPU.

 

[montag451]

sorry - my maths was out a little - oops.

 

[dpid]

thanks! got it recognizing correctly by setting it at 133.
my computer finally works.

 

[yaas]

I've been having this same problem with my computer off and on recently. It started in July of last year, then when I bought a new video card, it started working fine again. At the end of December, it started acting up again. Same problem, no output- nothing sent to the monitor, optical mouse not lighting up, keyboard not lighting up. I only recently noticed that the keyboard and mouse weren't responding. I thought it was just a monitor/video card issue and I was going mad switching things trying to get it to work. Occasionaly I can get windows to start up and get everything working, but then it'll freeze on me after a while and it's hell to get it working again(reset it the bad way a million times). Luckily I haven't lost any information, but I have a big feeling that the motherboard is what's causing all of this. The computer I have is a Compaq Presario 5000US. I took note of what that person said above about compaq not putting a speaker in there to let me know its the motherboard... well that's nice to know.

So... for the people that had this problem and got a new motherboard, is there any way I can get things working with a new motherboard & processor without having to reformat and lose all of my files? There's some things that aren't backed up that I'd like to save, and I guess the next time I get it working that's all I'll be doing, but I'm tired of having it freeze on me then going through the whole cycle of comp not sending anything to my monitor/keyboard/mouse. =\

 

[dpid]

Originally posted by: yaas
I've been having this same problem with my computer off and on recently. It started in July of last year, then when I bought a new video card, it started working fine again. At the end of December, it started acting up again. Same problem, no output- nothing sent to the monitor, optical mouse not lighting up, keyboard not lighting up. I only recently noticed that the keyboard and mouse weren't responding. I thought it was just a monitor/video card issue and I was going mad switching things trying to get it to work. Occasionaly I can get windows to start up and get everything working, but then it'll freeze on me after a while and it's hell to get it working again(reset it the bad way a million times). Luckily I haven't lost any information, but I have a big feeling that the motherboard is what's causing all of this. The computer I have is a Compaq Presario 5000US. I took note of what that person said above about compaq not putting a speaker in there to let me know its the motherboard... well that's nice to know.

So... for the people that had this problem and got a new motherboard, is there any way I can get things working with a new motherboard & processor without having to reformat and lose all of my files? There's some things that aren't backed up that I'd like to save, and I guess the next time I get it working that's all I'll be doing, but I'm tired of having it freeze on me then going through the whole cycle of comp not sending anything to my monitor/keyboard/mouse. =\

I understand completely...
This is what I did, I bought a new motherboard and a new cheap hitachi hard drive (check Frys', I got one 80gb for $30).

At the same time I installed my MB, I installed my new HD via jumper as primary. This way, I can format/install a clean copy of Windows without worrying about partioning and worrying about losing data by accident.
After this, just set your old HD drive as slave, and voila... you keep all you data without TOO much work.

BTW, if you use WinXP and have documents under MY DOCS folder (in old HD), you'll need to take ownership of that folder when you install a new copy of WinXP
See below for details...
http://support.microsoft.com/d...b;en-us;308421&sd=tech


oh, and the reason I got no sound from my computer is that the red wire came unsoldered from the speaker. Even after my new MB, no sound.