Hello

Please help!

I bought a desktop in Nov 06 - it has the following spec:

ASRock Conroe 945G - DVI Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo
1 GB Ram
Audiophile Delta Soundcard

It was all working fine until March when the screen picture started going wobbly. Then it started flickering onto No Signal Or Cable Disconnected. Until finally it is not showing any signal to the monitor at all. I checked the monitor (an old VGA style one) and it works fine on another computer.
Now the computer just powers up and then starts the keyboard lights (Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock) flashing together intermittently. I can also hear what I'm sure is the DVD Drive clicking slowly and I can see the fan is running OK over the processor chip. But that's it!

I have tried unplugging things from the motherboard and re-plugging them in but it doesn't change anything!

Any suggestions or diagnosis would be greatly appreciated!

Lowtax4eva

Have you tried putting another monitor on the computer, if the problem persists this would confirm the error is in the tower.

It could be the video card, if you can swap the video card out of another machine you can test this.

dave_stalks

Thanks for reply. It's defintely not the monitor as have tried swapping it over with another computer and testing my current monitor with a laptop and it works fine.

I have my VGA monitor plugged into the onboard blue socket on the PC (Motherboard is ASRock Conroe 945G DVI) so i can't swap the video card as there isn't a seperate one. Which is starting to make me wonder if the problem might be the motherboard itself. I hope not!

Lowtax4eva

In that case, it must be, if the fans are coming on the power supply is fine, it might be that the hard drive is shot, but then you'd at least get something on the screen before it stopped working.

HVAC888

When the keyboard lights up intermittently as you described, it means it is booting. I guess there is no on-board speaker hooked up? Usually there will be a single beep indicating that booting has started. This can happen even if nothing is displayed on the monitor.

What you need is an external video card. Buy one or borrow. When you plug it in, it should disable the on-board video automatically.

dave_stalks

OK. I'll give that a try.
Actually whilst typing this... the computer suddenly turned on and booted up as normal except the screen image was all wobbly again - like there was magnetic interference. So am not sure what that would suggest? It was on for about 2 mins before switching off again and going back to its previous state of keyboard flashing etc...
I'll get another video card then!
Or a monitor that fits the DVI socket.... (I just read up on that!)

dave_stalks

someone also suggested re-setting the CMOS?
had to look that up - is that removing the battery from the motherboard and then replacing it again??

HVAC888

Thats the easy way. The other way is to look for the cmos reset jumper. Either way, it performs the same function, to reset all bios settings to defaults.

dave_stalks

hmm.... that worked for a bit. the monitor came on and i got into the BIOS settings and changed the clock time and date then saved but then the monitor went back to no signal. The keyboard is currently not flashing.
looks like it could be more serious then? like the MB itself?

HVAC888

The motherboard should be ok. I'm thinking the on-board video is causing the problem. Get yourself a decent video card, or borrow one. Once the computer is working fine, check if there is an bios update and update it.