No Video

I have a one year old generic PC running Win7 Ultimate.Some days ago it started to give trouble booting up and also while on to freeze etc. I used checkdisk.Switched off and then on.System did its thing and took its time and then said disk was ok.Used other words but I cant remember which but that is not important. Happy,I switched off. Now, a few days later I switched on———No video.I can see the pc is on and working. This is strange,because I cannot even see the start page where I can choose get into Bios etc. Nothing,totally Black. I checked,the monitor is fine, works on this pc!!! What shall I do. Please help. Thank you.

Hi wesi, You mentioned that you have an "old generic" PC running W7. There might be a hardware comparability problem with "old" hardware and W7. I know that some computers that come through my workshop and running W7, do not work with my current monitor and I have to use an older flat screen instead. If you have a video card installed and know what it is, I would suggest you first check online if it is compatible with W7 and if so, download the latest driver for it to disk or thumb drive and install it if you can hook up another monitor that works as a temp. measure. See how that goes first before proceeding with any other options. Cheers, Lee

Thank you Lee. PC is one year old——not old.It has been and is perfectly compatible with Win7.Each component was bought after checking for compatibility with Win7. The video card works in the other pc. Also I tried the graphic chip on the MoBo. No change—-no video, not even a flicker of any kind. How about BIOS crash.Would that bring about this situation?

Sounds like the system isn't even POSTing. Better check all your connections, reseat the RAM, or start unplugging things until you find out what it is that is preventing the POST. It could be your power supply, motherboard, or CPU has just crapped out.

If appleoddity's suggestion does not work and it is starting to sound like there is no post, you might have to go back to square one to work out what is and isn't working http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=120814 This procedure can be done "in-case".

Cheers,
Lee

Appleodity—Thank you. Did as you suggested.In addition took out the board battery and put back after 2 minutes. Switched on–viola I now get the cursor in the top left corner but nothing else. Cant get into bios by tapping Delete during powering on. What next? MoBo is Asus M4A78LT-M Lee:Thank you.Let us see what happens.

By pulling the battery you effectively reset the BIOS. Chances are you have modified hard drive settings. If things are normal, you should certainly see the POST screen indicating the motherboard is starting up properly, showing you a splash screen, or information about your CPU, memory, etc. Shortly after it should try to boot your operating system, which at this point as where you would usually get a flashing cursor in the upper left hand corner if there was a problem. Your monitor may have some delays turning on, so it is not able to show you the POST screen before your motherboard moves past it and tries to boot. This would keep you from seeing the data you need, or responding in time. In this case, you usually need to start pressing the Delete key shortly after the keyboard lights flash on your keyboard (num lock, caps lock, scroll lock). They flash to indicate keyboard initialization, after which you immediately start tapping the DEL key to get into the BIOS configuration. You would obviously do this prior to seeing anything on the screen, because your monitor is too slow and showing you video only after its too late to press DEL. The setting that I am most concerned about would be your SATA mode setting. It will need to remain the same, before and after a BIOS reset. If you installed the operating system in AHCI, or Native mode it has to stay there. If you installed in Legacy, Compatibility, or IDE mode it needs to stay there. If it has changed you will have problems. I suggest finding that setting, toggling it one way or the other and retrying to boot. If you still cannot boot, I would reset the SATA mode back to its initial configuration (this is most likely what you had it in when you first setup your computer) and then use a Windows 7 installation disc to boot into startup repair mode which may solve your boot issues. Within the Windows 7 repair mode, you can also run a CHKDSK, or other tools against your drive to make sure it is healthy. To get into this "repair mode," you need to boot a Windows 7 installation disc, and choose "Repair Your Computer" during the initial setup screens. Afterwards, you will need to specify your username and password on the system, and then can use the "Startup Repair", or "Command Prompt" options to perform many essential tasks. You may also want to use the Memory Test option to verify you are not having memory issues.

Thank you. Will do what you suggest tomorrow and report back.

Appleoddity. Delay because I have been at it for hours and hours. For many hours on booting it has been half and half no video or the cursor. Cursor—-half the time nothing but then other half some thing.= First time I tunned on I found myself staring at page American Megatrends–writing—in second paragraph it announced that Dvd drtive and WD sata drive were working. At the bottom of the page it asked me to press this and that for certain actions—I have extremely weak shor term memory so can not say what. I clicked but nothing–system froze.The keyboard had no response. I remember some time ago the whole trouble began with mouse and keyboard freezing and also problems with Asus express gateway behaving in all kinds of strange manner. I switched off and restarted.After many tries I found myself staring at Bios.I moved to Boot order to check setting and then it froze. Have not been able to get into Bios since. When there was video it would say Loading Asus express gate and then freeze. Sometimes it loaded windows which worked fine but then froze after a while. One time the screen went haywire and then the blue colour became very big and it froze. During this time I tried to reboot with Win disk—about 30 times—-but it simply did not work. I have no data on the disk—so I am prepared to reformat and reinstall but how? When the disk does not boot! About half hour ago I booted up and played 2 games of Solitare ,it was fine.I left it on and had tea and the sat to write this.Before begining this para I checked—–Frozen solid. What am I to do? I have checked using other pc—–Mouse,Keyboard amd memory all work fine so does the video card. Could the problem be with MoBo? I have an Asus 880-GM-LE unused.My cpu is Amd Phenom 2 X4 840. Will the combination work. Or does the solution lie somewhere else? Please help this old man.Thank you

Wesi, there are a few things we can say for sure here, based on the information you have provided. 1. This is definitely a hardware problem. 2. Trying to reinstall, reload, or do any other type of repair to your Windows operating system at this point will only make things worse. 3. The more you attempt to run this system the worse off you will be. Every time windows freezes up you risk corrupting more files. Running the system like this could be doing further damage to components in the system. 4. The problem is NOT your hard drive nor your video card. The first thing to do is to get the system down to its bare components that is needed to test. That means removing any expansion cards, including the video card, modem, sound cards, or any other cards that have been plugged into expansion ports on the motherboard. Next, disconnect the hard drive, floppy drives, CD-roms, and any other IO devices plugged into the motherboard. Plug your monitor directly into the onboard video on the motherboard, and this is how you will test from this point forward. The next thing to do is to fire the system up. See if you get video. If you do, enter the BIOS. Let it sit for a little bit to see if it "freezes" up. If it can run well past the time frame it has in the past without freezing up then power the system off, plug the hard drive back in and go ahead and boot the system. See if you can use it for a while without freezing up. My suspicion is that it will continue to freeze up as it has been, indicating that the problem is definitely with one of four items: Your motherboard; Power supply; Memory; or CPU. If the computer does not freeze up, then that indicates the problem is with one of the attached expansion cards, or IO devices you disconnected. At this point, its trial and error. Swap, replace, test. You'll have to narrow it down. I'm nearly positive the problem is with your motherboard, CPU, power supply, or memory. That means your next step will be to eliminate the easiest components - your RAM. Removed all of the modules, swap them around, clean them, run on one chip or another - just follow the process of elimination until you narrow it down to a bad chip or something. If the system continunes to freeze, and respond the same with any or all memory modules, then chances are its not the memory. Now you are down to most likely being a motherboard or CPU issue. Confirm the CPU fan is spinning properly, confirm the CPU heatsink is properly mounted and solidly in contact with the CPU. Remove and inspect the CPU/heatsink if necessary to confirm everything is mounted properly, clean, and thermal paste is reapplied. From this point forward there isn't much else I can do. Its up to you to visually inspect, replace, or eliminate which component is causing the problem. Take care. NOTE: One other thing that came to mind is that is obviously a custom built system. Its possible you may have purchased "performance" memory. Freezing up would not be uncommon when trying to use performance memory. I haven't seen a system yet run stable with memory that uses non-standard parameters such as voltage, and timings especially on an Asus motherboard regardless of how you configure the BIOS. They are very specific as to which memory has been tested and works. What model of memory do you have? This could be a clue as to why the system is not working properly. Especially after "resetting" your BIOS.

Thank you for your time and advice. I shall do as you have advised and report back.It might take a day or two. I simply do not know enough,therefore,no special Bios settings or any kind of special hardware.I made no changes to Bios when built and installed win7.All worked fine till Asus express gate started strangely .Worked fine for a Year. RAM: Geil2GB Each CL 7-7-7-20 1.5v pc3-8500 sorry forgot to write this the first time Anyhow I shall report back.

I did as you asked. I have a Memory check utility disk that boots directly.So before removing Memory I ran the test that lasted almost all night.Nothing wrong. Disconnected Dvd burner and HDD. Rmoved video card.Connected monitor directly to the board.I had nothing else. Started pc. Monitor says No Signal!!!! Does this confirm that MoBo is dead? Do I need to do anything else other than to change the MoBo? Thank you for your help,really appreciate it.

A "memory check" utility is useful, but not guaranteed. Your computer can easily have a bad memory module or a bad slot, or any combination of issues with the RAM and pass tests with flying colors. I see it all the time. The only REAL test is to remove them, and start using them independently and in different combinations until you have completely eliminated any chance of a bad memory module, or bad slot on the motherboard causing you a problem. Often times it is helpful to run the "memory test" on each chip individually. Actually, we're still down to the same 4 items: motherboard; CPU; power supply; or RAM. You might try "resetting" the BIOS one more time. I can't see this happening, but your motherboard might need to be reset to use the onboard video instead of the add-on video. Although, that has been an "automatic" thing for quite some time.

I reset the memory—–same result—monitor says no Signal. I did test the memory one at a time,that is why it took all night. Other than this how do I check it? How do I check the CPU? If MoBo is working then why is it not functioning–what other check can I make about the MoBo? MoBo has a green light to say power is ok.This has been on every time.How else do I check the PSU. Thank you for the trouble you are taking on my behalf.

Ok. I wasn't clear how you had tested the memory. The way we usually test power supplies and motherboards and CPUs is to simply swap them out. Its most likely the motherboard. But, it could be the power supply. Its not likely the CPU, they usually don't go bad - unless it was overheating.