help... system won't boot (monitor won't go into "comp on" mode)

scsa20

Simonsoft Network
Joined
22 May 2004
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hey all... I'm having problems with my custom built system. The whole system is about 3 years old, the motherboard is about a year and a half old. Anyways... I went to take a nap and when I woke up, the monitor had gray pixals (about 5x5 pixal squears) all over the monitor, so I just restarted my system only for it won't boot anymore... the green light on the monitor just keeps blinking too (meaning it won't turn on when the system is on) so I can't see if there's any errors. At first I thought it was something wrong with the hard drive but then I remember that the hard drive has nothing to do with the monitor not turning on or for the system to start the pre-boot progress. Then I thought there's something wrong with the motherboard batter but why would that make any differents with the boot up? so I tryed replacing it (hell... I had to sooner or later, time was either running to fast or too slow) with no luck... now I think there's something wrong with the motherboard itself... and I believe I voided the motherboard's warrenty so I won't beable to send it in to MSI (that's the brand of the motherboard I have)...

Why I think it's my motherboad and not the graphic card? because there's normally a beep that beeps when going into the second screen that shows detail information of what hardware it sees.

What do you think? Anyway to get it working without the need of a new motherboard?

here's the specs to help you a bit (just to let you know, I can't remember the model name of my motherboard... it's just a MSI Mainboard for AMD processors).

Processor: AMD Althon XP 2500+
RAM: 512 MB DDR-RAM
OS: Windows XP SP2
Graphics: GeForce 4 type (can't remember excat model, it's by Mad Dog tho.)
and you alreadly know the motherboard.


thanks for any help.
 
I don't think it's a video card problem but I'll try it and see (I still have my old voodoo III graphic card somewhere).
 
update: tested my video card in another one of my comptuers to get the same problem... I'm still going to get another graphic card to test it once more (since the graphic card from my other system won't fit into my system).
 
Yeah easiest way to test would be to disconnect the monitor from your box. If it turns on ok (has a green light thats not blinking) then it's probably the graphics card and you could trouble shoot that by putting it into another box. If the problem follows it your done .. you need a new card. :)
 
turn your computer off, unplug the power and remove the cmos battery for about 10seconds and the put the batter back in, plug in try see if it works
 
Well the gray or white squares on the monitor is telling you no signal. Sounds to me like your vid card died.
 
Ok here is a way to better understand the process of POST

Power goes into the machine in a very specific manner and it does not change from one to another. If you pull the videocard and the memory sticks you should get beeps if you then throw back the memory sticks the beeps will change, the first beeps are the memory error beeps the second are the video error beeps.

See if that helps. If you have no beeps with the memory out the trouble is before the memory means either CPU or BOARD.

Clear CMOS is always good here to try and you can unplug everything like sound cards , network cards and all that even harddrives none of that is needed to boot a computer , you can boot from a floppy .
 
Oh in the boot order the VIDEO Is RIGHT after Memory of course thats why I say you will hear beeps for memory and beeps for video , OR of course you should because thats how it is spose to work, oh of course you need to make sure the system speaker is plugged alot of people make a mistake and unplug those.
 
welp... tested it out, tryed a friend's PCI type of graphic card (I was using an AGP type of graphic card) and booted just fine (although I had to change the time and such before it could start because of the motherboard batter I replaced last night)... So my graphic card is fried >_> oh, and I checked the fan on my graphic card, it seems like it got stuck and wasn't able to cool it T_T

Can anyone recommend me a good graphic card that has RCA video out (since I need to get a new graphic card now)?
 
you could just get a normal card w/o RCA out and just get an adapter that goes from S-Video to RCA, I did that becuase me T.V doesnt have S-Video. I recommend a BFG 6800 GT, it comes overclocked and a lifetime warrenty....It's not at the top of the graphics card food chain but its a great card....Thats also assuming that you will be playing games. If not I would get a lower Radeon card that is a all-in-wonder that will have your RCA on it.....Sorry to hear about that, its a huge bummer when hardware fails.......R.I.P Geforce 4....
 
Yeah, too bad I didn't noticed that the fan was starting to get jammed, and it was such a great graphic card too :( (it was, litturaly, the best card of it's time when I got it... okey, okey, I got it a couple of month after it was the best of it's kind, still)... btw... I was thinking about getting the ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 9600 128MB DDR AGP Graphics Card... and it seems like my dad's going to go out and get it cuz he keeps asking questions o_O (damn, just more money I well owe him >_>)
 
I could never figure out the differents between the 9600 and the 9600XT... but when I got home for lunch from work, I saw that my dad areadly got me it....

is it possable to install a new graphics card without first removing the old drivers or do I need to contune to use my friend's PCI card to remove the drivers before I could install my new AGP card?
 
It's best to remove the old drivers. From past experience, when I've switched from one gfx card mfg to another I have had issues at times unless the drivers were completely removed. Switching from 3dfx to nVidia (Voodoo 3 and tried a Voodoo 5 for several days in win2k) then switching to the GeForce 2 GTS I had issues. I cleaned up as best I could, but the driver/dll protection or whatever they call it would kick in and keep restoring the old files... Uninstalled, and well...

Among other things I got Martian Unreal (green faces and red caste on the ground and stuff) and other artifacts. Benches were peculiar and rather unbelievable... Ultima 9 looked odd (I made a thread about it a long time ago) and a re-install cleared it all up.

Going from one nVidia card to another (they have unified drivers) this never seemed to be an issue for me. Not sure with ATI, but suspect the same. nVidia has a utility to clean remove their drivers, and there might be some others out there. You're best to clear out old drivers tbh...

Edit: If you can't load (you probably can, but just in case) to remove the old drivers with your new gfx card in there, you can try safe mode or default vga mode to allow yourself in. Then from safe or default VGA, remove the old gfx drivers, and proceed from there...
 
I would hit F8 right before windows starts with the new card in and goto "VGA Mode" then just uninstall the drivers in add/remove programs. Then reboot and download the newest ATI drivers...and which card did you end up with? the AIW or just the normal one?
 
I gotten the AIW... took me a while to get it set up, now I just need to correct the color and I'll be set.
 

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