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I went out for a few hours leaving my computer when I got home I moved the mouse but the screen still stayed black so I rebooted and turned screen on and off the screen worked and I noticed it was a wireless mouse and keyboard problem so I rebooted it another few times hoping it would work but now when I turn it on I just see a black screen on boot up and I've even swapped the graphics card out for another one but it didn't work. Could you please help I'm not sure if its a hardware problem or software.
Hi Ben - When you accessed the desktop what happened that made you think it may be "a wireless mouse and keyboard problem"? Could you also please let us know a little more about your computer....brand name, age and basic hardware specs? Also, are you in possession of an XP installation CD?
The fans may be running slow simply because there is not enough heat being generated to kick them into a higher gear. Also, a lot of the newer mobos control the speed of the PSU fan, it may well be stationary because the temperature at which it kicks in has not been reached ...so, it may not be the PSU at all. Is the HDD busy light flashing when you first boot up, is there power to the CD/DVD ROM drive, is there power to the monitor (is the monitor light on), are there any lights on???
First of all make sure there is no CD nor DVD in the ROM drive, no disc in the floppy drive (if your tower is fitted with one) and no USB external drive is connected. If there are any CD's, DVD's, floppy discs or USB drives present please remove them and try again. If that's not it then check all the external cables, to and from the tower...particularly the cable which connects the monitor. Make sure they are all securely in place. If it is none of those things I am thinking it may be a RAM problem and have some further steps for you to try. Please post back and let us know.
cheers....JIM
If it were the PSU, it would overheat and cut power to the system (unless your system is 10+ years old or so). You swapped graphics cards which was a good place to start, I think. Next I would swap out the monitor and/or monitor cable and double check.
Do you have speakers hooked up to your computer? Does your computer play the normal startup sound? Do you hear that if you leave the computer sit long enough (even though the screen stays black?)
Listen carefully during startup. Do you hear any beeps coming from the main chassis? One short beep means BIOS found nothing wrong (more correctly, POST). Any other combination of beeps == bad.
Does anything show up on the screen during the startup process? Even a "Press F2 for setup" before it goes blank would be telling.
Umm....and then Jim's stuff. LoL.
It is a custom PC. I have the xp pro disc.
The spec are:
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ x 2 Dual Core Processor
4gb DDR 2 Memory
2 x LG Super Multi dvd/cd Writers
Nvidia Geforce 6800XT Dual DVI Output Graphics card(Swapped for Pallit 9500GT has been working for a few weeks)
1 x 500gb SATA Hard Disk
1 x 250gb SATA Hard Disk(Not working so unplugged)
1 x 200gb SATA Hard Disk
500w PSU
When i boot up i see the lights on the dvd writers flash and the motherboard light is green.
I've tryed with a wired keyboard and using a vga cable but i get the same result. I have even tryed the screen with another computer using dvi and it worked.
There is no beeps on startup which worries me and when i turn on the pc the screen stays black i don't get to see any boot up or anything. This only happened when i left it on for a few hours.
Okay Ben - Sounds like you may know a little about what you are doing and now we know this is a reasonably new machine. I am assuming there were no discs in the ROM drives and no USB drive connected?
I would like you to remove the ram strips, clean the contacts and put them back in. What can happen is; the tiniest specs of dust, almost microscopic, embed between the strip and the slot on the mobo and cause bad contact.
Please make sure the machine is witched off first. Remove each RAM strip and wipe over the gold contacts with a soft rag or cotton bud, preferably using some sort of contact cleaner. Carefully replace each strip after cleaning, making sure they are all seated firmly.
While you have the RAM in hand, check to see if there is any 'burning' effect. This will be characterised by little black marks in the center of each contact. If they look nice and clean that is good but clean them anyway.
Ben, these steps may appear to be a tad basic, and they are, but we need to eliminate the obvious and try the simple things first.
Post back and let us know please,
JIM
Okay...sorry for the delay Ben, I'm in Oz and only just got out of bed and read your post. Have you recently changed any settings in BIOS, overclocking...anything like that?
Please try the following (switch off power first):
1) Remove the CMOS battery for about 10 minutes and then put it back in (you may need to buy a new battery). Locate BIOS jumper pins on mobo and reset Bios. Please read here if you need help with that operation: http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS
If that has no effect try step 2.
2) Swap out the PSU for a known working one.
The first one should get your BIOS back. The second one will confirm whether or not the PSU is working 100%. It has been my experience that, in most cases, the PSU either works or it doesn't but there are the exceptions where PSU is creating enough energy to run some resources such as lights, fans, etc. but not enough to power up an entire machine.
Getting BIOS back will help with further diagnostics but at this stage, if neither of those steps resolve the problem, I am thinking serious hardware issue....faulty mobo, CPU maybe.
cheers Ben......JIM
I reset the bios and took the battery out for 10 min and put it back in but no difference and there is a beep but it's a 1 deep beep which is quick and I don't have a spare psu at 500w at the momment but I do have a old 350w one but doesn't have any sata cables I might buy a new one next week sometime.
1 deep quick beep usually indicates everything is ok. (it does vary between mobos, but that's pretty standard)
Does your motherboard have onboard video?
Do the lights light up on your NIC?
If you have onboard video and you're routing through your video card instead, try plugging the cable into the mobo video out instead of the card video out.
The NIC is typically one of the last things to get power during start up -- lights here indicate that POST is most likely successful.
If you do not have onboard video, do you have another video card you can drop in for now?
It sounds like it could be your video card, your power supply, or a combination of the two. If we can get anything to display on screen, it will make it much easier to troubleshoot.
Also, a 350W power supply should be able to power the mobo / processor. (I haven't done the math for your particular combo, so please double check). Hooking up just the mobo / processor and using onboard video and leaving everything else unpowered should at least net you an error message on startup.
--zig
At this point, without some expensive testing equipment, the troubleshooting process involves swapping out parts until something works. If any and/or all of this is still under warranty, I would start with your warranty service.
This could be (in order of likelihood) Bad video card, bad RAM, Bad slot on the motherboard, bad motherboard, Power Supply.
If this were me, here are the steps I would follow. Depending on availability of parts and/or money you may not be able to do this:
1) Unplug everything from the motherboard (HDD, DVD, CD, Card Readers, USB ports, etc). Only keep the video card, one stick of RAM in the primary slot (marked as A or 0 - use two if its paired memory) -- plug in a keyboard (pref. PS/2) and turn it on. This will elminate as many things in one go as possible.
2) Repeat step 1 using each stick of RAM in succession.
3) Find a PCI video card and try that, using the above setup.
4) Try the PCI Xpress video card in another machine.
5) Swap out the Power Supply for an alternate - keep your setup at minimum to ensure you don't strain the replacement power supply.
With no errors and no video the problem seems to be hardware related. Determining which piece of hardware takes some work.
Hey Ben - I've come across an article which may help you. You will see though that it pretty much mirrors what Zig and myself have suggested.
Here is the link:- http://www.tips4pc.com/Articles/Compute ... en_and.htm
cheers....JIM
Jim Hillier
Richard Pedersen
David Hartsock
Carol Bratt
dandl
Jason Shuffield
Jim Canfield
Terry Hollett
Stuart Berg
John Durso
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