Computer will turn on, but no video

[integra2316]

Well just a little backgorund, I have a Gigabyte motherboard with a 2.8 P4, 1 gig of PC-2700, 9800 XT running XP. It has been fine for that past few months. But almost once a night when playing a game, everything will freeze, the video, the sound , so I have to reboot. Usually it just comes right back up and plays just fine, but last night it did not. When it froze, I rebooted and it gave me a beep code, 1 long, followed by 2 short. So I looked it up and it said display adapter. SO I pluged in my brothers Nvidia card, and nothing, the computer comes on but no video. So then I tried an old PCI video card, and same thing. I brought my machine to work, and tried a different monitor. I have also tried my 9800XT in another machine here with an AGP slot, also nothing. I just need to know if I need to buy a new motherboard, or a new video card. Thanks guys


Chris

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Changing the monitor won't make a difference.

Are you CERTAIN that the error code you're getting is for the video card? If it was, plugging in another should work.

I'm thinking maybe you're getting a memory error. Pull your RAM and re-seat it. Might be some grunge on the contacts.

The fact that it's been locking up fairly often on you, though, indicates that something may have been going bad for a while and now finally failed. Could be bad mobo, bad PSU, bad RAM, back CPU (in order from likeliest to least likely).

For now, pull all cards except the vid card, disconnect all ribbons and headers (LEDs, switches) from the mobo (you can turn the computer on by shorting the power switch pins on the header with a screw driver), pull the power plugs from all the drives and the vid card. See if you can get the mobo to POST (actually without the power cord in the video card what it SHOULD do is give you an error message on the screen from the video BIOS that the power cable is disconnected).

Try reseting the CMOS memory.

All else fails, you need to swap parts out with another known good system to identify the problem.

CPUs are hard to kill so I'd leave that for last since it's usually a pain to pull it. If you have 2 ram sticks, pull one then swap them, or swap them all with known good ones. Swap out the PSU (you can just swap the power cable without actually removing the old PSU.

Hope this helps...

 

[earthman]

Does this MB have a 12 volt 4 pin connector (yellow/black) going to it from the PSU, and is it hooked up? Also, if you tried the graphics card in another computer and it didn't work, that would seem to indicate it is defective....

 

[integra2316]

Well i tired everything, I think I fried the mb, ram, and video card. So I ordered a new asus board and a gig of ram. I had a 9800XT, I will try it when my board gets here, if it doesnt work i will buy a Nvidia 6600GT and RMA the 9800XT and sell it when i get it back.

Thanks guys

Chris