damn this desktop

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i really do think i should just torch the thing and be done with it, lol. im sure some of you remember the desktop of my flatmates ive been working on, on and off for the past few months. well he has generously donated the pc to me, if i can get it up and running. so i decided to take another look at it last night, to see what might be done about it!

but when i booted it up the screen did nothing. not even a flicker, power LED shows it in standby mode. its strange, when i plugged the monitor into my laptop the feed came through fine. so its not the monitor or the monitor cable. but im not sure if its the graphics either. when its unplugged, the monitor states its not getting signal, and when i plug it into the graphics card, that warning goes away. yet it wont work. grrrrrr!

any ideas? im thinking of trying to get hold of a cheap functional graphics card, and trying to get that to work. maybe try and figure out if its the card or what!

but i have noticed that im not getting a POST beep code at the boot up. strange!

Fergal

 

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Hmmm, sounds like it could very well be the graphics card. I would try a new one. However, you mention that your are not getting any post beepcode, so I will assume the the machine is not booting at all.


This could be due to the video card, or could be to do with something else on the MoBo, or the MoBo itself. I would try changin the video card first if you have one lying around, or you could try playing with the MoBo to see if there is another problem.

You didn't mention wether you changed the RAM that was causing problems before, or wether you had sorted any problems that you were having. If you haven't managed to sort it yet, I would change the RAM and video card, and if your still having problems, remove any other cards that you have installed. If it still ain't working, I would put my money on it being the MoBo, or maybe the processor, however you will normally recieve beep codes for those, unless the speaker has failed of course.

However, I'm no Hardware expert, so the above may be complete jibberish . I'm just sayin what I would do in this situation.

Sounds like you'll earn the free PC to me. lol


HTH


Andy

 

hmm
try check the bios graphics order

if its a pci card make sure its PCI/AGP

if its an agp card make sure its AGP/PCI

that solved a similar problem once

 

unfortunately phoenix. i cant get into the CMOS setup. the monitor shows absolutley nothing. it was working before. and we havent changed anything in CMOS.

no i havent managed to change the RAM punkboy. cant afford it at the moment. was really just going to mess around with it for a bit, wipe the hard drive if i could, etc. maybe see if it would boot linux from a DVD, that kinda thing. just to pass time, but the graphics just dropped out.

ah well, never mind, ill see if i can scrounge a cheap card and see if that helps at all!

Fergal

 

Fergal,

I occasionaly get this on my system when the Bios resets itself to factory defaults. All I do to fix it is press the reset button and it springs to life, put the Bios back to the way it was and it's fine for a couple of months until the Bios decides to reset again. I have a mate who's PC also does something similar which makes me think it might not be just a fault with my mb. You never know if you're lucky thats all it might turn out to be

Phil

 

nada im afraid phil. i'll keep trying to scrounge up a card tho!

 

Current Update:

Removal of the current Graphics Card produces a beep code, yet seems to allow the system to progress to the boostrap loader (checks floppy).

Fergal

 

the beep code being no VGA
meaning the card might not be at fault, or you should (yeah i know, since when did bios' do what they are supposed to do) get a beep code for the vga anyway

try reset the cmos on the motherboard, there should be a jumper for it

g'luck

 

nada on the BIOS reset im afraid. tried powering up with the jumper in the reset position, then tried power up with it back in the standard position!

think im off to buy a cheapish graphics card to test with!

Fergal

 

Fergal, when you reset the bios you normally only have to change the jumper, remove the battery wait for a couple of minutes to be sure, put the jumper back and the battery and then power up. The bios should have then been reset.

Sounds to me like the graphic's card is playing silly buggers with you. You don't mention if it's a pci or agp card. If it's pci then have you tried changing pci slots as the slot might be playing up.

 

Can you drop the suspect gfx card into a known-good PC, just to be sure ?

 

UPDATE:

i bought a 32meg card (AGP) today and installed it into the slot. the good news? i got image on the monitor. the bad news? single post beep, and a stall on the screen! sometimes it will get to the stage where it says CPU detected. sometimes it doesnt even get to say the name of the BIOS!

any ideas?

(its an AGP card btw)

 

latest update is that i finally got the pc to do stuff. i can access BIOS, and mess around with it (though it sometimes stalls, but i believe thats to do with the fact that i took off the fan in order to rewire it to plug into the MOBO fan jumper, and was stuffed because what i had doesnt fit! grrrrr). it will check the primary/secondary IDE's, but it wont go further than that, wont initialise the bootstrap! grrrrr.

Fergal

 

I don't know how many ram banks you have but have you tried changing them around in different slots, or booting with just one (in case you have more than 1).

If you can get hold of a pci graphics card you might try that. Your agp slot might be faulty.

Different psu maybe?

I take it you also have a computer so have you tried any of the components in yours, replacing 1 at a time?

 

i have a laptop, so its a no go for testing. i have to say that getting to the BIOS was through mutliple resets. when i did a cold start the problem reverted to scratch. im more and more thinking that the MOBO is knackered! i have two RAM sticks. i did try shifting them around, and also with just one in (but not the other). i got fed up with it so ive stopped doing anything to it just now. im thinking taking the thing apart and taking what i can from it for spare parts!

which is a shame, cause i have a linux firewall distro that i was gonna load onto it and hook it up to our LAN. and then maybe at a later date turn it into an Email Server, but never mind i spose!

Fergal

EDIT: i forgot to mention that i also remembered last night i had a secret weapon. a POST probe. i tried using it, and got it freezing on the anti-virus warning. but then when i reset and re-tested it loaded into the BIOS, so it completed the POST. dammit! lol. but at least i got to use it, lol!