Draft Dodger
03-12-2008, 08:14 AM
I'm trying to figure out what's up with my PC. Last night I rebooted my computer and I got a black screen - no signal to the monitor at all. I opened up the PC and did all the normal stuff - blew out all the dust, reseated the video card, checked all the cable connections. I still can't get a signal (I separately was able to verify that the monitor and the cable are both ok). I've run into this a few times recently, and checking all the connections has always resolved it in the past.
I know the computer is booting at least some of the way - when I turn it on, I can hear the hard drive working just like during normal boots. When I turn the machine off using the power button and turn it back on, the computer beeps and reboots after 45 seconds or so (my assumption that it hit the "Windows was not shut down normally" screen which will reboot after a certain amount of time).
so, it's a bad video card, right?
I haven't had a chance to swap out an older card to test that theory, but there's something that makes me curious. When I boot the machine, it should be going all the way to windows (I have XP "log in automatically"). But I can't see the machine on my network. Would a bad video card keep the machine from booting all the way? Could there be something else I'm missing? I've been suspicious of one of my IDE cables, but I can't see that causing these symptoms. What really makes me go "hmmm" is that this issue only seems to happen during restarts. I'm going to begrudgingly swap in an older card tonight, but I welcome any other ideas on what may be vexxing this machine.
I know the computer is booting at least some of the way - when I turn it on, I can hear the hard drive working just like during normal boots. When I turn the machine off using the power button and turn it back on, the computer beeps and reboots after 45 seconds or so (my assumption that it hit the "Windows was not shut down normally" screen which will reboot after a certain amount of time).
so, it's a bad video card, right?
I haven't had a chance to swap out an older card to test that theory, but there's something that makes me curious. When I boot the machine, it should be going all the way to windows (I have XP "log in automatically"). But I can't see the machine on my network. Would a bad video card keep the machine from booting all the way? Could there be something else I'm missing? I've been suspicious of one of my IDE cables, but I can't see that causing these symptoms. What really makes me go "hmmm" is that this issue only seems to happen during restarts. I'm going to begrudgingly swap in an older card tonight, but I welcome any other ideas on what may be vexxing this machine.