# Is my PC dead - diagnosis from symptoms and it's cure



## Eoghan (Aug 29, 2011)

I went to switch on my desktop yesterday and it switched on but the monitor is dead. I have no idea what may be displayed on the screen I have however managed to get the windows logging on sound and the shutting down sound (occasionally). This leads me to believe that the PC is booting but that the monitor is getting no signal from the GeForce 6600 card. Unfortunately what was cutting edge (AGP) has now been surpassed by the new slot (PCI Express) so it is a second hand graphics card or over the odds for new old stock (?).

I have tried both video out slots to no avail. There is simply nothing - no booting process on the screen nothing. (the monitor works fine with another PC) 


Any other tests you can think of?


----------



## Berean (Aug 29, 2011)

Do you have another monitor that you can try? It sounds like the computer is booting up fine. I had a monitor die a few months back. Is the power light for the monitor on? Otherwise, try (with the PC on and booted up) plugging and unplugging the monitor from the outlet, as well as pushing the power button several times. Any results?


----------



## Edward (Aug 29, 2011)

Try taking out the video card, booting the computer, turning it off, and putting the card back in for a reboot. Probably won't work, but give it a shot.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion (Aug 29, 2011)

Eoghan said:


> This leads me to believe that the PC is booting but that the monitor is getting no signal from the GeForce 6600 card.


Plug the cable now plugged into the graphics card into the VGA port (or whatever) on the back of your computer and see if things work, thus confirming your graphics card is kaput.

AMR


----------



## Eoghan (Aug 30, 2011)

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Eoghan said:
> 
> 
> > This leads me to believe that the PC is booting but that the monitor is getting no signal from the GeForce 6600 card.
> ...





Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Eoghan said:
> 
> 
> > This leads me to believe that the PC is booting but that the monitor is getting no signal from the GeForce 6600 card.
> ...



I tried switching to a SVGA cable (with adapter no joy). I have removed and reseated the video card but did not think to try and boot with it out the board. worth a try I suppose

---------- Post added at 01:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 AM ----------




Berean said:


> Do you have another monitor that you can try? It sounds like the computer is booting up fine. I had a monitor die a few months back. Is the power light for the monitor on? Otherwise, try (with the PC on and booted up) plugging and unplugging the monitor from the outlet, as well as pushing the power button several times. Any results?



(the monitor works fine with another PC)


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion (Aug 30, 2011)

If running off the native graphics VLSI and not the graphics card still does not light up the monitor then the issue is motherboard related or the monitor. You say the monitor works fine on other machines, so now you know. You can verify your graphics card is not the culprit by installing it in another computer, too.

AMR


----------



## Pilgrim Standard (Aug 30, 2011)

This happened to me a few years ago... It turned out *in my case* that the VGA settings were somehow changed to a resolution that the monitor was not capable of displaying. I realized this only after trying a different monitor on the same pc. I used that monitor to change the resolution to what I knew the other (original) could accept then swapped them back. presto.


----------



## Eoghan (Sep 25, 2011)

It seems to have been the PCI-Express slot. I tried the other slot and found out it worked. By this time I had got out the motherboard manual (yup I still got it) and had bought a AGP slot graphics card. I might have also made things a little worse by leaving a DVD in the DVD drive, if the boot sequence got screwed up...



...anyway it works!


----------

