Blank / Black Screen on boot usually and when it does boot freezes

[sreaberac]

Started in the beginning with me booting up my computer. And no live screen occuring. ie. Monitor is on but goes to sleepy mode. (orange light instead of green light). I'd have to boot again before it'd run. However, now no matter how many times I boot it does not cause a live monitor. I bought a new stick of ram. PC3700 400 Mhz. Even though my MO takes up to 333 Mhz but that should be okay as it'll just bump it down. I also reseated my graphics card and changed the slot in which my RAM was in.

If I reseat the graphics card the computer will cause a live screen, but crash shortly after with a computer freeze. And I'd have to reseat everythign again before I'd get another live screen. Usually holds long enough to load windows and get in for 2 minutes before freezing.

When the monitor does not become live, there are no beeps. When the monitor does show (before the freezing problem) the mo beeps once. Hardrive, fans on power and graphics card all work. mother board light is on. No weird sounds. Monitor does work as I've tried multiple monitors. I'm running out of ideas, Suggestions?

 

[El Presidente]

Looks like something is up with your graphics card. Try the onboard monitor output (if you have one) or another graphics card. Hope this helps.

 

[sreaberac]

So you think the RAM was not an issue. Should I return the ram stick then?

What are the symptoms of a graphics card failure? Would it cause ur system to freeze. I would have thought it would just knock out output on the screen but my computer would still run the programs without the monitor. But this is not the case.

 

[El Presidente]

It has been my expeirence that bad RAM will:
-not let the computer boot
-freeze at random times for no apparent reason
-cause a blue screen of death

The interesting thing about your case is that if you reseat the video card, the computer will boot and work for a minute or two. This suggests that maybe your card is faulty or the AGP (or PCI) slot is defective in some way. I'm curious, does the monitor still show an image when the computer freezes in Windows? If so, all you may need to do is to install the lastest graphics driver for your card. Something else to try, boot up and go to your BIOS and check to make sure it has recognized the RAM and has the speed set to 333Mhz. Also, if you have more than one RAM stick, I *think* they all have to be the same speed, though I'm not sure about that. Go to http://www.memtest86.com/ and download the program and run it. This should tell you if your RAM is faulty. I hope this helps and update me on your progress.