Hi all,
I'm trying to build my own computer without my husband's help so I can learn stuff along the way. My first obstacle is that the monitor has no signal. The computer I am upgrading is my brother's old one and I played cards on it just last week before he gave it to me. When I brought it home and started it up (no modifications yet) there was 'no signal'.
It is not the monitor or the cables as I have tried them on another computer. I swapped the graphics card to another computer and that works fine too. Is there something else that could be loose? This is the stupidist problem to have, but I'm sure I'll learn some good jargon with your answers.

The obvious thing to do is:

Open the box (which you have done) and push anything that looks like a plug, card, processor or RAM into the socket.

Power on... does the fan go around? If not, check the fuse. If that's OK could be the power supply is bust.

If the fan goes around, can you hear the disk being accessed? If not then the computer is not running and just about anything could be at fault. Second guessing or remote trouble shooting any electronics is a waste of time. But at least you have checked the basics.

A word of caution.. "When handling static sensitive devices always make sure that you are grounded" and "Remove power before handling the electronics"

Good Luck

Note the "beep" pattern when the PC 1st boots. Also, does the monitor screen change (eg. bllink, lose sync, change shades of "black", etc)? If the monitor, cable and video card checks out with another system, see for a possible builtin video port on the MB. If there is no onboard video, did/can you try another expansion slot?

Good Luck

P2E

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raych

Hi all,
I'm trying to build my own computer without my husband's help so I can learn stuff along the way. My first obstacle is that the monitor has no signal. The computer I am upgrading is my brother's old one and I played cards on it just last week before he gave it to me. When I brought it home and started it up (no modifications yet) there was 'no signal'.
It is not the monitor or the cables as I have tried them on another computer. I swapped the graphics card to another computer and that works fine too. Is there something else that could be loose? This is the stupidist problem to have, but I'm sure I'll learn some good jargon with your answers.

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Power seems OK as the fan spins and I can hear the hard drive whir.
The screen just clicks on with 'no signal', it is a consistent (irritating) message with no flickering. If I unplug it from the monitor port it goes to 'No connection'. I've pushed in everything I can, and I think I'm earthing myself (not totally sure, probably stuffed everything!).
Tell me more about the onboard video card bit, I think I have that.
I do remember a beep from the BIOS (is that what beeps?) but will have to go home and listen carefully to it and let you know. (Logging on from work).

If you hold down the F2 key when powering up you should enter the BIOS setup utility. This is a small piece of software (microcode) that is not on the harddisk. Your computer should power up into this utility which is nothing to do with windows. Be careful not to change any settings unless you KNOW that the particular setting is incorrect.

If you get to the setup utility, you will now know that the system is OK and it is either the windows software or the disk access that is at fault.

Check for the correct orientation of the IDE cable (DISK 40 way ribbon cable) on both the motherboard and the disk. Check that the disk has the 4-way(?) power lead connected. (Generally the leads on the disk drives cannot be connected the wrong way, but you never know)

Keep at it.

Assuming you get a single beep at bootup... you are probably NOT looking at a bad video card or monitor - maybe a BIOS setting. Since you are getting the messages/text on the screen says you are getting basic sync, high voltage is working and the video data is properly being "processed".

Is yor monitor plugged into a builtin or add-on (AGP, PCI) video controller card? Also, check to see if your system HAS a builtin (MB) video port! If you have 2 video ports, you should check your BIOS to enable/disable the correct video source accordingly.

Good luck mate (or is that matris?)... :confused:

P2E

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raych

Power seems ok as the fan spins and I can hear the hard drive whir.
The screen just clicks on with 'no signal', it is a consistent (irritating) message with no flickering. If I unplug it from the monitor port it goes to 'No connection'. I've pushed in everything I can, and I think I'm earthing myself (not totally sure, probably stuffed everything!).
Tell me more about the onboard video card bit, I think I have that.
I do remember a beep from the BIOS (is that what beeps?) but will have to go home and listen carefully to it and let you know. (Logging on from work).

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Ok,
One beep from BIOS on startup. Pressed F2, no change to screen, however computer beeped (that sound when you are leaning on a key) but this time the hard drive did the extra higher pitched whir. At least I know the keyboard works! But no access to BIOS available.
Going to buy new IDE cable on the weekend to try that out.
I have a built in sound card, but no on board video card. There is only one brown coloured slot that the video card is plugged in to, so I assume I only have one video port? Or is the port different to the slot?
Geez, I feel so blonde.

Try F12, that may get you into the BIOS. My PC shows F2 for BIOS and F12 for SETUP. Yours may be slightly different?

Have you tried starting Windows in Safe Mode? I think that is hit and hold F8 key just after power on. That may get you access if the graphics card or monitor is being asked to display in a resolution that is not available.

No luck with the F12 thing, but then I unplugged my brother's two hard drives and plugged in my new one and hey presto! Working monitor. My BIOS set up shows as F1, so I'll know that for the future! Thanks for your help Colbtech & P2E.
My next problem is the 'PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable'.
I have no idea what media it is talking about. I also have a disk boot failure.
Suggestions welcome, although I'll try reading the motherboard manual that my dad found yesterday, and doing an internet search. Thanks again guys!

Hi Raych,

Check the settings for the hard drive in the BIOS. As you have changed the type and size of the drive the original BIOS settings will be incorrect.

Raych,

Like I said, the problem is not the monitor... Unanswer'd Q's Is your video built into the MB? If not, did/can you try another video card a/o expansion slot? :confused:

For what its worth, the most common access for accessing the BIOS is by pressing the DEL key when the PC powers up... Oh & if that doesn't work, try CTRL-ALT-S, or CTRL-ALT-Enter, or CTRL-ALT-Insert, or CTRL-ALT-Esc, or F1, or F2, or F10... :confused:

P2E

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raych

No luck with the F12 thing, but then I unplugged my brother's two hard drives and plugged in my new one and hey presto! Working monitor. My BIOS set up shows as F1, so I'll know that for the future! Thanks for your help Colbtech & P2E.
My next problem is the 'PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable'.
I have no idea what media it is talking about. I also have a disk boot failure.
Suggestions welcome, although I'll try reading the motherboard manual that my dad found yesterday, and doing an internet search. Thanks again guys!

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These are BIOS access keys that I am aware of, try pressing these keys immediately after the POST beep...

DEL, ESC, Ctrl-Esc, Ctrl-Alt-Esc

Good luck,

P2E

PXE failure could be your Network card trying to boot up. I assume you don't want to boot from the network so remove any onboard network card from the startup sequence.

Disk boot failure probably means that the nice new hard drive you put in doesn't have any operating system on it - stick your software cd in now and make sure bios is booting from CD and you should be off!

Sounds like your problem with the graphics was the two hard drives conflicting with each other - probably both set to master!

Hey everyone my is Andrew and I have a problem similar to Raych: no signal on monitor, PC boots up with hard drive being processed, one beep, lights flash for a second and stop. I checked the cables and circuits on montherboard for damage but notting so far. I switched the monitor to another PC along with the memory, both worked. All of the fans spin. I have read the MB's manual and cleared the CMOS RAM but still no signal on monitor. I am also having problems with accessing the bios menu with no signal on screen. I need help!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andrew1234

Hey everyone my is Andrew and I have a problem similar to Raych: no signal on monitor, PC boots up with harddrive being processed, one beep, lights flash for a second and stop. I checked the cables and circuits on montherboard for damage but notting so far. I switched the monitor to another pc along with the memory, both worked. All of the fans spin. I have read the MB's manual and cleared the CMOS Ram memory but still no signal on monitor. I am also having problems with accessing the bios menu with no signal on screen. I need help!

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Did you try another monitor to see if maybe the problem is the video adapter? If the monitor works on another PC that's most likely the issue. You might try swapping that out.

Two things to check:

When you cleared the cmos memory did you put the jumper back to how it was originally? - if you leave it on the clear setting you've got no chance!

Do you have more than one vga socket on this machine e.g. one built into the motherboard and one as a separate card. Have you checked the monitor on both?

Ok Scottgem I did try the montior on another computer which worked. And I also bought another video card, ATI 800XT, installed it and still notting. (no signal on monitor).

In regards to StuMegu's question; I did follow the MBo's manual by placing the cap on 2, 3, pins for 5-10 seconds and removing afterwards placing the cap back on default 1 and 2 pins then restart. As for the VGA sockets, I think there is a second on built into the motherboard aside from the APG port, but I haven't tried the monitor on that one. Perhaps maybe I may need another vga type adapter to attach my monitor to that socket.

PS: I am going to look for the other vga socket and install the monitor on that one to see if it works.

Do you have more that one VGA ports? If you are using an VGA adpater card, then you will have a port in one of the slots. If the video is on the motherboard, then the VGA port will be among the other ports like USB, parallel etc.

If you have onboard video, then you may need to disable that before using a video adapter card. Your motherboard documentation should tell you how.

Heya, I'm having somewhat the same issue. Recently my computer began to run slower while running games(know there is a hardware issue because it has happened before and I just reseated the RAM and Hard drive and for some odd reason, it fixed it), but now it happened again, I tried reseating stuff in the monitor, for some dumb reason I unlatched my intel processor and latched it back in, push more cables/cards in tighter, and when I attempted to start up my computer again, everything would run fine, except the monitor wouldn't receive any signal from the tower. It didn't have any error message, just was in standby mode. I also don't see the light power up on my laser mouse. I tried numerous things I read on other forums, but non worked (including taking out and putting back in the CMOS thing). All the fans are working and the green light on the motherboard is lit up fine. I know for a fact that the RAM and video card are fine(tried them on other computers). If anyone has ANY suggestions at all, it would be GREATLY appreciated.(btw I barely know the basics of the hardware on a computer)

I took out my CPU and on the processor chip, aboutg 8 of the gold pins were bent, 1 was broken off. If I rebend the ones that are still bent, would 1 pin being broken stop it from running?