No display, strange problem.

[konasu]

nvidia 8800GT
dual core e8400
4gigs of ddr2 ram
p35 mobo
750watt psu

After a restart my monitor wasnt displaying anything, but the system itself seemed to be booting (all fans going, keyboard responsive, etc) just not getting a signal on the monitor; it stays in standby mode.

never had a problem with my build before. Swapped monitors, cables, etc, so those are definitely not the problem. Ive been messing with it for about 6 hours, clearing bios, etc. I swapped power connectors for the GPU and it actually worked a handful of times but its extremely sketchy. I have to mess with it for hours in order to get a "magic" boot.
This is incredibly frustrating, thinking it might be electrostatic discharge or something.

If anyone might have absolutely any insight I would appreciate it.

 

[qazxcbb]

Try it with alternate ram sticks(1 @ a time), in the 1st slot. Sometimes if one stick is dead, they wont boot while in dual configuration.
Cheers
qazxcbb

 

[capt_taco]

Does it work if you plug the monitor into the motherboard's onboard VGA port? If so, that indicates it's not recognizing the video card anymore. Could be a problem with the video card itself, or sometimes it could be that the CMOS battery is dead, so the machine keeps "forgetting" the BIOS settings and defaulting to onboard video.

I would also recommend checking the RAM -- try what he said, but if you can run memtest on them in another machine that does boot, that would be ideal.

Also: Testing the video card in another machine could help narrow down the problem if the above fails to solve anything. If it works in another machine but not yours, it could indicate a) a problem with your power supply, or b) the PCIe slot on your motherboard is going bad.

 

[konasu]

My motherboard doesn't have an onboard VGA port. If I had another pci-e 2.0 card I wouldnt have hesitated to swap them and further troubleshoot. I'm currently typing on the system I mentioned. When it boots I have no problems whatsoever, it runs fine. But on occasion it still doesn't send the monitor a signal during boot.

 

[capt_taco]

Well, if there's no onboard video, that probably rules out the CMOS/BIOS problem, at least.

If the RAM checks out, it'll be hard to troubleshoot the rest of the components further unless you can start swapping them out into another machine. But that'll probably be where the problem lies.

 

[konasu]

I salvaged a little "buzzer/speaker" from my other case, connected it to my mobo, and according to the post beeps, its the video card. Hope thats what it really is.

Don't really understand though, Ive never overclocked it or messed with it at all.

 

[capt_taco]

Well, sometimes a video card can just go bad -- or sometimes it can get fried because of a problem with the PSU. Still other times, it's not the video card that went bad, it's the motherboard's PCIe slot.

If video card is what the beep code says, that's what I would troubleshoot, because your symptoms sure make sense for a video card problem.

I would seriously recommend testing the card in another system. If it doesn't work, that points to a bad card, in which case you should also test your PSU to make sure it's not going around frying components.

If the card works in another system, it could be a motherboard problem, in which case, also test the PSU to make sure it's not frying components. Also check the PSU's cables one-by-one with a meter to make sure one of them is not faulty. You mentioned that the card worked with a different cable, so I am also worried that the cable/connector you had the card originally hooked up to went bad and messed up the card, but the other cable/connector is OK and will get it to work, but only in a "sketchy" fashion because the card is damaged.

 

[konasu]

Well, sometimes a video card can just go bad -- or sometimes it can get fried because of a problem with the PSU. Still other times, it's not the video card that went bad, it's the motherboard's PCIe slot.

If video card is what the beep code says, that's what I would troubleshoot, because your symptoms sure make sense for a video card problem.

I would seriously recommend testing the card in another system. If it doesn't work, that points to a bad card, in which case you should also test your PSU to make sure it's not going around frying components.

If the card works in another system, it could be a motherboard problem, in which case, also test the PSU to make sure it's not frying components. Also check the PSU's cables one-by-one with a meter to make sure one of them is not faulty. You mentioned that the card worked with a different cable, so I am also worried that the cable/connector you had the card originally hooked up to went bad and messed up the card, but the other cable/connector is OK and will get it to work, but only in a "sketchy" fashion because the card is damaged.

Thanks for all of the input, I'm going to take my card over to a friends house and test it, as his system is nearly identical to mine. Hope its just a bad card.

Btw nothing really changes when switching power connectors to the card, but I somehow doubt its the PSU, as not only is it a high end 750watt rosewill, but the computer itself boots perfectly fine. I can even hear my OS's login noise. I guess it could be a problem isolated to a gpu power connector, but my intuition is telling my otherwise.