PC has no video

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pennypincher

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I'm looking at a PC for a friend,When you turn it on,the HDD led goes green for about half a second and then the power led goes orange,almost as if it's in standby.There is no video output to the monitor,I've checked the voltages on the HDD and A drive and they are getting power.I tried using a Boot disk but it makes no difference,I set the HDD up as a slave and I can see and access all the files,but to be certain I put a Known good HDD into the PC and still no joy.It was running Windows NT as it was a company PC which was imaged before being given back to the staff for personal use.Is it possible the BIOS has been messed with and if so how can I salvage anything consdiering I can't even get a monitor signal!I'm guessing that if the Video card had gone bad the PC would at least boot up correctly?Any ideas
 
have you tried reseating the video card... it could have been knocked loose in transit or something... maybe you could replace it with a known working one to see if that works...
I'm not sure why you are worried about the hdd when the video isnt working.. its possible that the bios detects a problem with the video and
just stops the boot process the hard disk is probably fine... The bios should post even if the hard disk is broken
 
To be honest I can't tell what's working or not,as per my post the HDD led only flickers green for half a second.Most PCs will have this permentantly on while booting up so I suspected the harddrive may have crashed.I can't be sure that no video is the symptom,it looks to me as if nothing is booting up.I just removed the battery to reset the BIOS it's a Dell Optiplex GX240.I reseated the Video card but will try to find a new one to try.Still does the same power led is orange nothing happening!
 
Hi Pennypincher. This sounds like the video card is bad, definitely try another video card, an orange light in a Monitor is the classic sympton.
I doubt it's the HDD, especially if u can see files when it's a slave on another PC. Can you hear the HDD spinning up when you power on the PC? You should at least get some kind of BIOS if the video is OK.
The other possibility is a failed mother board (bigger problem) but try the graphics card first. (PS: I presume you've eliminated the possibility that it's the monitor itself?)
 
You should reseat the RAM. If the problem persists you should disconnect the HDD, CDROM, mouse and remove any installed cards, if there's onboard video then revert to that . . then try to boot on a floppy. This link http://support.dell.com/support/top...ent?dn=1040268&l=en&langid=1&c=us&cs=19&s=dhs
suggests that a constant orange/yellow indicates a main board problem. There are probably 4 indicator lights ABC&D on the back of the PC and you should be able to look up the relevance of a particular colour sequence.
 
Does the internal speaker beep on start-up? Take a look at this to diagnose the beep codes. If it doesn't beep at all, make sure that it is connected to the motherboard. Remove the video card and try to boot, is the behaviour any different?
Leo
 
Thanks Guys for all the replies there's a wealth of knowledge out there thankfully.I'm starting to think it's a Motherboard problem.I took out the video card and tried a reboot to see if the power led would go green but it didn't.Then I reseated the Ram but still the same,there is no beep at all and the led on the mother board goes orange as soon as you apply power.The HDD is spinning and voltages to all devices are fine.I might try to reseat the processor but wouldn't be confident this will fix my problem.It won't boot from the A drive either.It is a P4 but I'm wondering if it's worth while getting the MB repaired,I might see if I can get a lend of an emulator and see if any of the buses are running,but even if they weren't what components would be suspect?
 
If there is a riser card then remove it, also maybe reseat the CPU . . and inspect the motherboard's capacitors to see if any are domed (rather than flat topped) or leaking as that is a common problem on the newer gx270.
 
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