Computer Suddenly Died. On-board Video Display Problem? CMOS Battery?

[TR2]

One of my older computers suddenly died of no reason. Well I meant it did not show any warning signs before it suddenly stopped working.

It is a Dell PowerEdge SC 440 equipped with Intel Xeon dual core processor, 4 gb RAM, dual hard drives with one running Windows 7 and the other running Windows XP Professional. It was running Windows 7 before it died. Everything was working fine. I just stepped away for a little while. When I came back to the computer, it was already dead. On the same table there were other computers running as well when I stepped away and they were all working well when I came back. Only this Dell PowerEdge SC 440 died.

I opened the cover of the system and had the system connected to another monitor and another keyboard/mouse set. It seemed that the power supply worked fine. The fan was blowing. All the light indicators were on. I touched both hard drives with my finger and felt that both hard drives were spinning. However, the monitor shows nothing.

What could possibly go wrong? Does it have something to do with the built-in video display of the mother board. (There is no separate video card installed with this computer.) Does it have anything to do with the CMOS battery? (Would that help if I installed a new CMOS battery to the mother board?)

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[corroded]

It does sound like the onboard video died... Do you have a card that will go ion it to try?

Can you switch the primary GPU in the BIOS to a card vs onboard?

 

[TR2]

It does sound like the onboard video died... Do you have a card that will go ion it to try?

Can you switch the primary GPU in the BIOS to a card vs onboard?

The short answer to your question is: No, I don't have a video card for this particular computer.

One of the main problems with this computer is that it does not have a 16X PCIe slot and the system resources is not enough to take care of the independent video card.

I have two extra video cards but they both use PCIe 16x interface so none of them will work on this computer.

Once upon a time, I bought a 512 mb video card with PCI (Not PCIe) interface specifically for this computer. It worked initially. However, after a power outage, the video card does not work anymore. For this incident, I tried to refresh the CMOS by taking out the battery and putting it back. I think I messed up the CMOS a little bit by doing this because afterwards I had to press F1 every time I started the system.

Luckily, I don't use this computer much in the past couple of years but I still would like to save it if I can because it is nice to leave this computer running day and night due to the fact that it was designed as a server and equipped with an Intel Xeon processor.

 

[corroded]

is it setup for remote access?

 

[TR2]

is it setup for remote access?

No, it is not. It was used just as a regular PC.

 

[corroded]

if you have another system... You could try a USB based video adapter. Install it on the other system, noting the click steps on the install and then mirror that on the other. It might work.. :-(

 

[TR2]

if you have another system... You could try a USB based video adapter. Install it on the other system, noting the click steps on the install and then mirror that on the other. It might work.. :-(

Thank you very much for your help!!!

Could you please refer to the same thread name under FORUM --> MOTHERBOARDS? Some one replied me a few times there and I described the situation a little more thoroughly there.

Thank you again!!!

 

[TR2]

For more details, please refer to the same thread under FORUM --> motherboards.

********************************************

Hi Everybody, the mystery is now solved--------------------------the hard drive was fried.

I switched the hard drive and started the computer with Windows XP Prefessional without any problem. The ethernet cable is connected as well. I am able to browse the internet too. I restarted the computer and it is okay also. I guess I just need to get a new hard drive. It is not too bad. The original hard drive that came with this computer was only 160 gb, too small to today's standard already.

Thanks to everybody who comes to read this thread and my special gratitude and appreciation to those who replied to my posts and tried to help me.

Again, thank you very much!!!