Jools Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 My mum's PC stopped working a few weeks back, so she sent me down to have a look at it. The PC switches on but there's nothing on the monitor - in fact it comes on briefly then just goes back into stand-by mode. My brother had the same problem a few years ago and back then it was his graphics card at fault, However, I tried several different things - different monitor, seating and re-seating the ram a stick at a time, tried and tested the hard drive in my machine (shows up fine) and basically it seems to be that it might be the on-board graphics that are at fault. I put in an old nvidia agp card but nothing changed, but I presume thats because I'd need to change the settings in the bios (which I cant see obviously) - but I thought that even on a new graphics card the startup screen would appear? So if it is the on-board graphics (Asrock mobo - SiS integrated gfx I think) is there a workaround for it or is the motherboard screwed now? Or did I overlook something else that it could be? Any help would be appreciated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ans Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 Most modern motherboards (ie anything in the last five years pretty much) should auto disable the on board graphics when they detect an auxiliary graphics card in a PCI/AGP slot. I'd suggest that the fact it doesn't is pointing to a wider issue with the PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bazcabs Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 My mum's PC stopped working a few weeks back, so she sent me down to have a look at it. The PC switches on but there's nothing on the monitor - in fact it comes on briefly then just goes back into stand-by mode. My brother had the same problem a few years ago and back then it was his graphics card at fault, However, I tried several different things - different monitor, seating and re-seating the ram a stick at a time, tried and tested the hard drive in my machine (shows up fine) and basically it seems to be that it might be the on-board graphics that are at fault. I put in an old nvidia agp card but nothing changed, but I presume thats because I'd need to change the settings in the bios (which I cant see obviously) - but I thought that even on a new graphics card the startup screen would appear? So if it is the on-board graphics (Asrock mobo - SiS integrated gfx I think) is there a workaround for it or is the motherboard screwed now? Or did I overlook something else that it could be? Any help would be appreciated If you put in a separate graphics card and moved the monitor over to it and the monitor is still not displaying then it isn't the graphics as you have now bypassed them. Is the machine actually booting, HD activity light flashing or is it just powering down before complete boot up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Posted May 30, 2008 Author Share Posted May 30, 2008 No its actually booting as far as I can tell, there is plenty of activity on the HD, and there's no error message beeps on startup. Its not really an old machine, perhaps 2 or 3 years, so would have thought it'd override the on-board settings for the graphics when I installed the graphics card (which is working by the way, I tested it my machine just to make sure). Could it be possible that it isn't overriding the default settings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bazcabs Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 No its actually booting as far as I can tell, there is plenty of activity on the HD, and there's no error message beeps on startup. Its not really an old machine, perhaps 2 or 3 years, so would have thought it'd override the on-board settings for the graphics when I installed the graphics card (which is working by the way, I tested it my machine just to make sure). Could it be possible that it isn't overriding the default settings? So even on a different card you are getting the same. Any chance of trying a different monitor ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 Unlikely, but it might be worth also testing with a different monitor cable (or checking it works properly with another PC). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insomniac Posted May 31, 2008 Share Posted May 31, 2008 if the bios is set to use onboard graphics will removing the battery with the new card in reset the bios to see the extra card? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted May 31, 2008 Share Posted May 31, 2008 Many of the on-board GFX cards share the pc's system memory - might be worth trying some known working RAM to see if it boots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Posted May 31, 2008 Author Share Posted May 31, 2008 I tried 3 different monitors, never made a difference, never thought about the monitor cable though, will look into that. Cheers for the other suggestions too, will probably try them all over the weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monty2k04 Posted May 31, 2008 Share Posted May 31, 2008 I tried 3 different monitors, never made a difference, never thought about the monitor cable though, will look into that. Cheers for the other suggestions too, will probably try them all over the weekend. Jools if you look further down the board I had exact same problem and had to buy a new rig....but a techie mate of mine tried the old one and replaced the ram and hey presto its up and running. I tried all the usual things and the folks here gave me a lot of guidance but plain and simple it was down to a faulty stick of Ram. I hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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