Computer turns on, fan revs, no display

revorocksrevorocks England, East Sussex, Hove Member
edited October 2008 in Hardware
Hi, my friend has a problem with his computer.

"After over a year of my PC working perfectly, overnight something seems to have rendered it totally unuseable.

When I turn on the computer, everything seems fine but there's no response from the monitor, as if the computer is turned off. Any help would be appreciated. The problem definitely isn't my monitor, I just tried a different monitor and the same thing happens. Also, the second I plug my computer in to a mains socket, it just switches itself on automatically."

He said it still beeps (which is post isnt it) so it isnt ram or cpu?

Any help is appreaciated.
Thanks

Comments

  • WinfreyWinfrey waddafuh Missouri Icrontian
    edited October 2008
    Could be the power supply or Video card. Try re-seating the Video card (take it out and put it back into the motherboard), I've seen this happen before and is worth a shot.

    For the power supply you could try a different one to see if it makes any difference. I would suggest the Video card first though because it is easier to do.
  • revorocksrevorocks England, East Sussex, Hove Member
    edited October 2008
    OK we tried reseating the video card. No luck there. Can't get hold a psu to try. I am going to put his graphics card in my pc tomoz and see if it works.
  • mas0nmas0n howdy Icrontian
    edited October 2008
    One thing I like to do is pull all RAM from the system and power on. If it has a speaker and doesn't scream at you, the board is not receiving enough power or is borked. It also wouldn't hurt to reseat the RAM anyway. It could be the CPU, but that is pretty unlikely assuming he had adequate cooling.

    Was there a power surge or anything preceeding this problem?
  • revorocksrevorocks England, East Sussex, Hove Member
    edited October 2008
    He has already reaseated the ram. Will try the other sugestion soon.
  • revorocksrevorocks England, East Sussex, Hove Member
    edited October 2008
    Well, he tried that and yes the bios speeker screamed at him, I gues that is a good thing?
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited October 2008
    tried clearing cmos?

    also, try taking everything out except for cpu/ram/vid card and see if it will post then.
  • revorocksrevorocks England, East Sussex, Hove Member
    edited October 2008
    Right, I went to his house today to have a look. Tried it normally to see what it does. The fan on the graphics card revs for 1 second, then slows right down for 2 seconds then starts to rev for a second then slows down again. This process repeats over and over and over again, no screen. after around 15 times it makes a beep. then nothing happens.
    We then tried it with onboard graphics, sure enough, it booted, did the same thing, but this time after the beep we were greeted with the bios screen. It then went into Windows (Vista Home) and began searching for "problems", it then repared the "problem" and rebooted. Now it works fine (using onboard graphics). Once it was booted, i pulled out the cable and switched to the graphics card graphics and sure enough no screen. I put it back in the onboard, and we had a screen but it was asking to install drivers. We installed the drivers and then put it back into the graphics card graphics but still no screen.

    Now we took the graphics card. started it up and it instanly went to the bios then loaded Windows perfectly and it works fine now. Basically the graphics card is broken. Its an 8600GT.

    I took the 8600GT home to try it in my computer, just to make sure its not just his computer, and predictably it did the same this, just ran revving then stopping then revving etc.

    Proir to putting it in my pc I took the heatsink cover off and discovered alot of dust walls clogging the metal fins. Im guessing the graphics card has overheated and now is borked. Anyway, looks like we found the problem.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2008
    Sounds like you've diagnosed it. :) (or :()
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