Spooky

[wachy11]

I have been working on a friends computer.
1st he called and said that something started smoking on his computer. He turned it off and it wouldn't restart. I brought a new motherboard, new CPU fan, and a Purepower 420w power supply. (his old power supply was definitely inadequate and appeared to be the source of the smoke?)
His system ran fine for about a week. Then the screen froze, and he couldn't get anything on the monitor after that. I checked it, and since it would not even display startup info, I assumed that it was video related. I installed another MB and a new processor, (they are ECS L7VMM+ with 32mb onboard sis video), and it displayed startup info once, then no more.
Finally I took another computer running an XP 1800 processor on a Biostar M7VIG Pro MB that was working great. I hooked it up to the monitor on the problem system and it wouldn't display anything. I then connected it back to the monitor that it WAS working with... nothing, no display.
I have taken his hard drive and installed it in another working system that has an ECS L7VMM+, and it works great. The monitor from the problem system does work with a newer notebook, and it did work with a higher end desktop system, (and video card). It "seems" like it is frying these onboard 32mb video setups, but the monitor DOES work. Could the monitor be "feeding back" or overloading the lower-end systems?
Am I dreaming?
Is this possible?
Any other probabilities?
Help?

 

[LiLithTecH]

The only concern would be if it was a DVI connector.
15 pin VGA would not feed back.

The board does not have an SIS chipset for the video but rather
a S3 Savage 8 2D/3D Video Accelerator. Are you sure you have
correct drivers installed?

Have you UPDATED the VIA 4-in-1 motherboard drivers?

 

[redbeard1]

I'd say that the possibility exists that the monitor could fry the onboard video.

We used to have one computer that we tested all new and used monitors on. Granted we were swapping each one out by simply unhooking one and plugging in the next, while the computer was still running, but we would kill a video card about every six to nine months doing this. We'd stick a new video card in and it would work again.

I've also seen just swapping out a monitor on the fly screw a windows system up badly, so some sort of voltage is being transfered.