No data being transfered from pc to monitor.

[Wally]

Hi all,
I have an etower T1400 running windows xp. I had it online
one day and my son came in from school, so I left it online
while I spent some time with him. When I returned my
monitor screen was blank but the pc was still powered up
and the monitor was still in full power mode.
The pc will power on according to the (green light) and the
(yellow light) will flash like it's loading windows or something.
The monitor will power up and show the mode screen for the
monitor, but nothing from the pc. I've tried a different pc to
monitor cable with no luck. I've tried a different monitor with
no luck either. What part of the pc transfers the data to the
monitor? Also do you think a virus of some sort could cause
this type of problem? The pc ran continuous, so I am hoping
something just played out that can be replaced.
I appreciate any help or advice you can give.

Thanks in advance.

 

[philo]

Hi all,
I have an etower T1400 running windows xp. I had it online
one day and my son came in from school, so I left it online
while I spent some time with him. When I returned my
monitor screen was blank but the pc was still powered up
and the monitor was still in full power mode.
The pc will power on according to the (green light) and the
(yellow light) will flash like it's loading windows or something.
The monitor will power up and show the mode screen for the
monitor, but nothing from the pc. I've tried a different pc to
monitor cable with no luck. I've tried a different monitor with
no luck either. What part of the pc transfers the data to the
monitor? Also do you think a virus of some sort could cause
this type of problem? The pc ran continuous, so I am hoping
something just played out that can be replaced.
I appreciate any help or advice you can give.

you do not have a virus...
it's a hardware failure of some type.

when you turn your machine on...
does it post ? IE: do you hear the beep?

if not...it may be a defective power supply...
otherwise it may be a video card or ram problem...
but if so, you should hear some type of audible error code.

it's possible it's just a loose component such as mis-seated video card etc

 

[kony]

Hi all,
I have an etower T1400 running windows xp. I had it online
one day and my son came in from school, so I left it online
while I spent some time with him. When I returned my
monitor screen was blank but the pc was still powered up
and the monitor was still in full power mode.
The pc will power on according to the (green light) and the
(yellow light) will flash like it's loading windows or something.
The monitor will power up and show the mode screen for the
monitor, but nothing from the pc. I've tried a different pc to
monitor cable with no luck. I've tried a different monitor with
no luck either. What part of the pc transfers the data to the
monitor? Also do you think a virus of some sort could cause
this type of problem? The pc ran continuous, so I am hoping
something just played out that can be replaced.
I appreciate any help or advice you can give.

Whether the flashing light is "loading window", or
"something" might be important. Sometimes a light will
flash because the board isn't posting, running. Other times
it's just the HDD activity. It might be useful to put your
ear next to the hard drive and see if you can determine
whether the HDD is being accessed, if it sounds like windows
is loading based on HDD activity.

The part transferring the image signal is the video card or
in your case, likely integrated video coming from the
northbridge though further motherboard circuitry.

If the system does not appear to be booting, Google Groups
search for "failure to POST" If system does appear to be
booting, unplug system from AC, clear the CMOS, plug back in
and retry it. If that doesn't work, examine motherboard for
failed capacitors and try another video card in it.

Take voltage readings and check fans, also an overall
inspection of the system internals.

 

[Wally]

The pc seems to be booting as it normally should. I hear
the audible beep and then the (A) or floppy drive will
kinda shutter like it's checking it, after that it just sets idle
and still no display. When this first happened and all else
failed, I removed the hard drive from the pc case and left
the IDE cable connected and removed the top half of the
drive then tried booting it up. The drive disc spun and the
needle moved about the disc like it was searching for or
reading data. I placed the setup disc in the cd-rom hoping
to repair damaged drivers if there were any. The cd-rom
acted normally as well. You both mention the video card
and could very well be the problem. I was wandering does
the audio come through the video card. The reason I ask is,
I never hear that famous windows sound that you would
normally hear at boot up. I'll check the things you mention.

Many thanks to you both for your help.

 

[kony]

The pc seems to be booting as it normally should. I hear
the audible beep and then the (A) or floppy drive will
kinda shutter like it's checking it, after that it just sets idle
and still no display.

That sounds a little like a board failure, one where the
board somewhat-works and it's "thinking" the fault must be a
corrupt bios, so it then tries to load from floppy as an
emergency recovery procedure to reflash the bios.

This would be ONLY if it doesn't try to boot from anything
else, you should attach another known-still-working drive to
confirm it won't try another boot device, or another video
card- sometimes a PCI card will still provide display output
even if the board is limping along trying to access the
floppy for a bios reflash.

IF it's looking for a bios, Google for "emergency bios
recovery floppy". Again, i am not sure this is the
situation yet, but it could be based on what's been revealed
so far.

When this first happened and all else
failed, I removed the hard drive from the pc case and left
the IDE cable connected and removed the top half of the
drive then tried booting it up.

Removed the top half of the hard drive?

Well then, the answer is more obvious, you've wrecked the
hard drive, the heads have crashed and can't read a thing
anymore. Hard drives cannot be opened except in a
completely dust-free environment, a cleanroom. I have no
explaination as to why your video isn't displaying now, but
it's probably a differnent problem and now you should not
use the drive, not have it turned on AT ALL, leave it
unpowered until such time as you can get another system
running and then have a chance to copy off any data if
that's possible- because if the drive works at all it's days
(hours, maybe minutes) may be numbered, the next time you
use it and each subsequent time it may have less data intact
if any.

The drive disc spun and the
needle moved about the disc like it was searching for or
reading data. I placed the setup disc in the cd-rom hoping
to repair damaged drivers if there were any. The cd-rom
acted normally as well. You both mention the video card
and could very well be the problem. I was wandering does
the audio come through the video card. The reason I ask is,
I never hear that famous windows sound that you would
normally hear at boot up. I'll check the things you mention.

Hmm. No, audio does not go through the video card, it seems
most likely you system is not booting to windows at all and
I suggest you take it to a repair shop ASAP, instead of
doing anything more with it, and mention to them if you have
any data that needs copied off the HDD and that you'd opened
it.

 

[Wally]

Thanks Kony,
I can't remember if I tried the boot floppy in it or
not, but I do have one made up for it. (somewhere)
I think I'll try it and see if anything happens. And
if it doesn't it's off to the repair man.