I need help in trouble shooting my desktop. Monitor works, cpu fan works, power supply works. Just nothing on the screen when you hit start button. Before this happened my pc sometimes have distorted screen that freezes & nothing I can do but to shut it down. After turning it on you will hear the fan running continously and the LED in the keyboard will flash once. Screen is blank, not even a flicker. Please give advice on how to check this.
Well, you're still at the "it could be anything" stage. Based on what you've posted, and based on my experience: Video card - highly likely Motherboard - possible RAM - possible but less likely power supply - possible but less likely What it boils down to is your access to spare parts and ability to swap them out. If it were a Sunday night and I didn't have access to Fry's or my storage area (where all of my spare parts are kept), here's what I would do. 1. remove all expansions card 2. remove and reseat the video card 3. remove and reseat all RAM modules 4. disconnect all drives (power and data) See if the system POSTs. If the system POSTs and gets to the point where it can boot, then just power down and start connecting things ONE by ONE. If there is still no video, then you will need to start selectively replacing/swapping the critical components (Video/RAM).
Thanks for your reply. Just to let you know that this PC is just a stock pc from HP/Compaq. Video card is an onboard type. I only upgraded the ram by adding (2) 500 mb in the 3 available slots. Will do the steps that you written a.s.a.p. I tried to look for video card at fry's and I found out that I have to upgrade my power supply bec. the current power supply is to small to power up the video card from frys. I think when Compaq built this PC, it was built for the standard components that it has & no upgrades except the memory.
If you have a Fry's available to you, you can always buy a cheap PCI video card to test it and then use the 30 day return policy to take it back if that isn't the problem.
Yes there is a fry's near me. I went there before & ask for a video card that my pc can handle. They said that they only have video cards w/ higher power requirements and they advise me to upgrade my power supply to be able to use the video card. I was able to buy a video card from someone & he said that he upgradede his v.card thats why he's selling it. I tried to put it in the slot when my pc was still running. Tried to start the pc but it seems it was not detected. It should detect a new hardware right? I connected the cable from the monitor but there is no signal, so I removed the said v.card & continue using the onboard one.
"I tried to put it in the slot when my pc was still running." Ouch. I hope that you don't mean that literally. You could have permanently fried the PC. It may or may not detect the new card and you may have had to disable the onboard Video in the BIOS, but if you can't get to the BIOS, well . . . If you're still not getting any video when booting up it now points to the PS or motherboard. Fans can still run if some of the voltages are out of spec or gone. Dead CPU is a remote possibility but hard to check inexpensively. Last test is remove the RAM module and see if it beeps on boot up. If no beeps I would say it's a bad motherboard.
