monitor showws nothing

i am not a genius on computers but am really intrested in teaching myself more abouth them so please forgive me if i say anything out the way..
I have a hp pavilion 511n desktop computer an when i turn it on nothing comes up on the monitor i only see that lil line be flashing at the top left of the screen for about couple seconds then nothing no more after that..
i tried using another monitor an the same thing happens when i turn on the pc i know the next monitor is working because i use it on my next desktop..can anyone tell me what is the problem that am having

 

Does it beep? Will it boot to a CD?

 

Well i haven't tried booting it from a cd,but it only beeps if i hit buttons on the keyboard.

 

ok cool..so you suggest that i change the ram an reinstall windows...

 

ok i changed the ram..now am getting the hp blue to come up for a split second then it goes to that black screen with the flasshing lil line....Now i am trying to reinstall windows now i get the 'prees any key to boot from cd'when i do that it says setup configuration is checking hardware.'you all know the message that comes up when installing windows xp i can't remeber what it says exactly'....after that pops up the screen just goes black again..

 

no i don't...it could be that the hard drive has gone bad?

 

that's the thing..i can't even get into the bios...unless am pressing the wrong buttonn am pressing f10.

 

Ok..i got into the bios...now how do i check to see if it sees the hard drive..

 

ok..i got it..i notice that the hard drive is in the boot menu..so am guessing that the bios reconizes the drive...but the pc does the same thing...so i went back into the bios an set everything back to their defults settingd

 

Go back to bios and dissable all the little extras like sound, lan, etc...this might help.

 

ok i did that still the same thing..could it be that the hard drive went bad..

 

Take a look at the top of the drive itself to find out who makes it. Then make a bootdisk/cd/flashdrive with the tool from that company's website. A full scan of the drive will almost always find & fix some problems.

BTW...is the system still sitting on an electro-magnet (subwoofer)?

 

thanks for the reply i will take a look at the hard drive an do as you say...no i don't it on a subwoofer.

 

Ok..i downloaded an burned the sea tools for dos from the seagate website..i boot from the cd to the top left i get free dos then it does its thing by copying an so forth...after that the whole screen goes white with a bumch of lines going tru it..could it be that hard drive is toatally finish an needs to replace.

 

I just remembered that when windows can't load a video driver (and it is so bad that it does not even try), you get the blinking little line in the upper left corner. Combinded with your dispaly problems in seatools, I think you might have a video issue. Is the video card/video chip getting very hot?

 

i will check it out..is the video caed that part where i push the monitor wire to the back of the cpu..i looked inside of the cpu an that part where the monitor does plug into is connected on the mother board.