Power on but no beep, no signal

[JayfromTexas]

seeking help.
Have a Sony PCV-RS520, past warranty. Working properly last night, this morning, system (from the PC tower) light was on, no signal on monitor. After hard power off of the PC, I tried to restart the machine, (as many had posted before), power on, fans on, just no signal on the screen.

I tested the monitor with my laptop, it works properly. I also tested the graphic card by putting a brand new card in, same problem. I concluded that it's not the graphic card.

I also tried to re-seat the RAMs (2x256) and graphic card, nothing changed. I am not very familar with the PC, so haven't tried to reseat the hard drive, motherboard, etc. I had a bad feeling that this is going to be ugly--besides the money to spend on whatever software, I will probably lose the photos on my hard drives.

Are there any suggestions as to what's the problem? I tried to follow the earlier posting, but didn't seem to see any resolution other than getting a new motherboard or hard drive. Help!

 

[DonNagual]

You mention that you popped another card in to test, and still received to signal to the monitor.

Was this other card you stuck in the same as the one you took out? If for example, you stuck and ATI in when your original card was an nvidia, then you wouldn't get a signal as the drivers are different.

Maybe this is obvious, but just wanted to make sure, as if you are not aware of the above, then it is not safe to rule out that your video card is the problem.

Assuming that the above is OK, and you CAN rule out a video problem, I have another question to help with the troubleshooting.

Does it sound like your system is actually booting into windows? In other words, can you hear your hard drive going nuts as if it is loading up windows?

 

[JayfromTexas]

No, actually, I bought one from the BestBuy, GeForce, which is different from the ATI that came with the computer from SONY. How silly that I didn't get the same brand, as I should know that even monitors or printers have their own drivers. I will try an ATI brand after returning this one.

As for the sound, all I can hear is just fans and noices, sounding smooth--no change of tone, I am not sure how to classify it, though. Another thing I noticed is that the light for the hard drive will be off after a short while, does this mean that the hard drive is not working properly?

Many thanks for your suggestion.

 

[DonNagual]

You should still be able to use that geforce as a test.

Try this:

1. Boot up your computer in safe mode
2. Go into your device manager and uninstal the drivers for your ATI.
3. Shut down your computer, and install the geforce card and plug the monitor into it.
*NOTE* does your geforce need a special 4pin connection to the PSU? Many newer cards do.
4. Reboot your computer.

You SHOULD now get a signal to your monitor. Windows SHOULD also be asking you for the drivers for the geforce.

Let us know what happens.

 

[draxon]

I've got a problem close to this also. Altho mine is a new computer... I've tried pulling everything out of the case and just booting up with the processor graphics card and 1 of 4 chips of ram. I've tested the ram and graphics card in a friend computer, who has the same motherboard as i do. when i power on i just get the monitor self test saying the monitor is working please check cables. I replaced the motherboard and processor now also thinking it was one of those that was causing the problem.

Everything powers up. Motherboard fan graphics card fan just no video output.

 

[JayfromTexas]

I am afraid that I don't know how to do steps #1 and #2 since the screen shows nothing. Do I just press F12 or F5 (don't remember) and let the machine run, then shut it down again?

Thanks.

You should still be able to use that geforce as a test.

Try this:

1. Boot up your computer in safe mode
2. Go into your device manager and uninstal the drivers for your ATI.
3. Shut down your computer, and install the geforce card and plug the monitor into it.
*NOTE* does your geforce need a special 4pin connection to the PSU? Many newer cards do.
4. Reboot your computer.

You SHOULD now get a signal to your monitor. Windows SHOULD also be asking you for the drivers for the geforce.

Let us know what happens.

 

[iss]

obviously you cant uninstall the ATI drivers as you have no monitor signal. one thing to check is the ram it could be that one of the ram modules is bad try removing one and bootting. do this with both sticks of ram.

another thing you might try is unplugging the computer and removing the CMOS battery let it set for 15 min then reseat the battery and try booting. just in case something happened in the bios, this would reset the bios to defaults.