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troubleshooting--no video signal after a freeze

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Here's the situation: I was using my computer with a few apps running, but nothing signficant..just browsers and text editors. My computer froze and pretty quickly I could tell there was no coming back. The system didn't resond to anything. I eventually had to power down. When I tried to power up my monitor never got a signal. Initially I thought somehting happened where my video card defaulted back to the VGA cable because I run with just a single LCD DVI screen. So, I plugged in an old CRT while I still had my LCD connected and powered on the computer. This time I got an image on both screens, I figured ok, that was wierd and moved along using both for a few minutes. Then it froze again..I have not been able to get a video signal from the machine since no matter what I try. All fans are running inside: cpu, video, 2x case, and the psu. I reseated the RAM. I disconnected all my IDE drives took out my other PCI cards and nothing. The motherboard has no onboard video.

I was thinking maybe it was the video card. Although, I let it power up and didn't hear anything from the speakers--but i'm not sure if a computer would boot to windows without a video card, also, the network shares that I had configured aren't accessible.

My next guess would be the ram, but I thought there are usually beeps and boops with bad RAM.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks
-jack


My specs are:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
1GB PC2700 RAM
ASUS A7N8X-X
EVGA Geforce 5500 256mb
samsun 941bw lcd monitor
I use onboard sound and have a belkin wirelss card.

More about : troubleshooting video signal freeze

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How old is your system? I just had a situation where simply turning a computer off resulted in major screw-up. Turned out the lithium coin cell that provides standby power to the CMOS RAM was dead, so all of the BIOS settings got screwed up.

Regards,

Altazi

Well, the system has had nearly every part upgraded, I've had the motherboard for about three or four years.
I've reset my bios and replaced the little CR2032 battery with no luck.

I'm gonna try another video card in the next few minutes--just gotta find one lying around that I know works..
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It's not the video card. I got the same results with a differnet card in it and I tried the suspect card in another machine and it worked without a problem. My next guess would be RAM then to the motherboard.

If anybody has any other thoughts at all I would appreciate it, thanks for the advice thus far.

-jack

The PSU is marked as 350W; it's a generic brand: L&C, model LC-B350ATX. The only thing receiving power at this time (directly from the PSU) is the motherboard. I disconnected all IDE drives from power, as well as the case fan.
I have another power supply unit (antec 350W) that I use in this current computer that I can test with at a later time.

I plugged in my Antec PSU, which I believe falls into Tier 3--True Power, to the suspect computer. However, it did not alleviate the problem.

Sadness imprisons me.

Thanks for the advice thus far. I'm going to continue to tinker and see if I can find a PCI video card--perhaps it's the AGP slot? If I find anything I will be sure to post, and of course, any suggestions you all have will be appreciated and attempted..if cost permits it.

I used to call it dirty power. I'm not sure what most people call it--when the power you're getting isn't any good.

Even during debugging/troubleshooting this I had most of my power being routed through a surge protector, it is relatively ancient for computers (2001) and I guess it's gotta be thrown out. I took the machine off of that and it proceeded to work very nicely. I put it back on there and the problem recurred..I'm on the troubled machine now hoping it continues to work for a while more..

Thanks to all who took the time to read my thread and especially to those who responded.

Until next time, take care.
-jack
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