Monitor has no display

[skygate]

I have a friend that needs help fixing his computer. He can't repair his computer since he has no knowledge of installation procedures.

His system specs are Athlon Thunderbird 1.3 ghz, PNY 256 pc 266 sdram, Iwill kk266+ motherboard, Cmedia audio, Geforce 4 4200 agp, 430 watt power supply and aluminum case by Avertec. OS is Windows XP Pro. Temperature levels of cpu and case good.

The problem is about two months ago the computer screen blanks out during the boot up process during the windows xp loading screen. This problem can occur even in the bios and windows desktop start menu. Everything continues to run because I told him how to restart xp blind and once it finished restarting, the screen shows again but will blank again later. He told me the monitor's green light stays on even when it blanks, but will turn amber after a while. I told him to go to fail safe defaults today and it will boot up normally with ram counting ok but it will eventually blank out. Again, this happens anytime, even during bios setup configuration through the "delete" key. All fans (cpu, video card, and case) and hard drives continue to run during this symptom. I also told him to go to safe mode, same problem.

He also said he may have broken a pin on the monitor cable so I told him to plug the monitor in another computer with a voodoo 3 2000 pci card and it worked with no blanking screen. Is it possible that the pci card uses different pins on the monitor so it works while the geforce 4 agp will not work for that same reason? What do you think the problem is isolated at?

Thanks!

[MTAtech]

The 1st think you need to do is determine if it is the monitor or the XP drivers. Try using a different monitor to test.

[skygate]

That is the first thing he will do since it is the easiest to do.

[Bovon]

Take that AGP Geforce out, clean the contacts good. I use a pencil eraser to rub the contacts and then use alcohol on a lint free cloth to wipe any rubber residue off.

Seat the card very good...front and rear..be extra sure it stays seated..the contacts on any AGP video card are narrow and one above the other..if the card is not fully seated (and remains seated) it will do exactly what you are describing.

Many AGP cards do not stay seated because when the hold down screw is installed, it pulls the card down at that mounting end...this in turn raises the other end up slightly..setting the video up to fail. When attaching the card with the mounting screw..the card...when fully seated, must be touching the case...so that no further movement will happen when the screw is drawn down to secure the card.

Even when the card is properly mounted...vibrations can cause the card to become unseated slightly. Many motherboards now have a rear gadget that is attached to the motherboard and helps hold down the rear of the card.

[skygate]

What you are saying is the videocard can show an image even when it is not completely secure in the agp slot? I thought it wouldn't even boot.

[Bovon]

When any video card is not seated properly, the machine will (usually) boot, sometimes you will get some POST beeps telling you there is a problem. All motherboards may not respond like this but I have had it happen where I turned the machine on, left the room and came back to a blank screen.

Of course the possibility that this is his problem is slim, but is something that can be investigated easily.

I have also seen monitors that just go blank for a few minutes without any apparent reason. I threw away a monitor last year that was apparently dead but it still had the green LED showing signal present...the screen was blank.. this one would not come back, and it was not worth the $$$ to trouble shoot and repair.

[skygate]

Ok, he just told me he tried to reseat the card already. Now I'm not sure if he accidentally caused electrostatic discharge on the geforce 4 so the problem was not completely told to me if this happened before or after his problem and he is unsure.

In the meantime, I am waiting for him to put the geforce 4 in the other computer.

He is eight states away from me btw.