[Drew7997]

It's a home built PC, for relative. Here's the issue.
steps for booting- turn on the monitor, hit the switch for CPU power. you hear the Computer booting but you don't see anything, you have to hit the switch in the back and at the same time you turn it on you hit the power up switch for the computer. THEN it MIGHT work, if it doesn't then you retry. It's not the PSU cause I replaced that with a known good working psu (more power than needed), it's not the video card cause I've tested 3 in it plus the onboard video (basic AGP/PCI video cards basic drivers work) It's not sending the signal to the monitor is my guess. However it's also not the monitor- I've plugged it into my VGA monitor with and without the KVM switch in the way. My guess- the mobo or the HD. but the HD works fine, you hear it ramp up and go into windows, you can then press the power switch on the computer and it will do a shutdown from windows. If you power it back up the monitor may or may not power up with it. I think i've made it clear. I think, been a long day at work. Ask questions or give advise. THanks everybody.

[Jackiefrost9]

reset the bios using the jumpers on the motherboard and see what happens.

[happyrck]

did you move the known good monitor cable when you hooked up the known good monitor...
if you have access to another computer...get memtest to test your memory...make a bootable cd and go into your bios to make the cd drive the first boot device...then the HD...while your in the bios F5 usually sets everything to default...try that BUT read to be sure which F key it is the correct one then F10 usually saves the changes...reboot with memtest in the cd drive...let memtest run for at least 2 hours unless you get a bunch of errors right away...if so the ram is bad...no errors after 2 hrs...press escape

click here

[Drew7997]

clear CMOS- good idea, never know. thanks

would the memory cause the signal NOT to be sent to the monitor?

Happyrck- what did you mean by "did you move the known good monitor cable when you hooked up the known good monitor..."
What I did was at the relatives house they showed me what was up, I then took it home and used my own monitor to plug it into and see what happens, same thing.

I got the memtest86 on floppy, i'll use it.

[happyrck]

Originally Posted by Drew7997

Happyrck- what did you mean by "did you move the known good monitor cable when you hooked up the known good monitor..."

their monitor cable may be bad...did you use one that your POSITIVE is in good working order...
the first thing I do when I'm not sure if its a hardware problem or a OS problem is to boot from a cd ( Puppy linux or ultimate boot cd)...and if they run without any problems then you know some of the hardware is good...(ram..monitor...cd drive ....power supply... video card)...
bad ram can cause all kinds of problems

[Drew7997]

happy- you said this "their monitor cable may be bad...did you use one that your POSITIVE is in good working order..."
But I said "I then took it home and used my own monitor to plug it into and see what happens, same thing."

See the issue? it's completely different everything except the mobo, cpu, heatsink, ram.

i'm going saturday to pull the cmos battery and run the memtest on it.

thanks for all your helps.

[happyrck]

I think I understand the problem now..its not the monitor thats bad ...the build is bad..
you say "you have to hit the switch in the back and at the same time you turn it on you hit the power up switch for the computer. THEN it MIGHT work," what exactly does this mean..did you or they ever get it to boot to the desktop...if this is a new build that has never bootted successfully
try this...disconnect everything EXCEPT..THE MONITOR..KEYBOARD...MOUSE...ONE STICK OF RAM...check the MOBO manual to see if using only one stick of ram requires it to be in a particular slot... remove all PCI cards...try booting..you should see your bios on the monitor screen..no joy remove the motherboard from the case...set it on the box the MOBO came in and try again...no joy try a different stick of ram and BE sure its compatible with the mobo you are using

[Drew7997]

no it's been runnning before- several years old actually, I've worked on it before cleaning out the spam garbage they have on it. but I knew this was a hardware problem.
that means that if it does work, the monitor turns on like normal and you can see the desktop and use windows until you shut down and reboot. Then you have to play roulette again. I am actually just trying to get ideas before I even go over there to touch it again, but as I said I'll try the 2 suggestions on saturday.

[happyrck]

try this
Run a Chkdsk. Start... Run.. type: Chkdsk /f/r then hit OK. You will have a message that it can't be run now, would you like to run at boot (Y/N) type: Y then Enter. Restart your computer and let it run.
You can also right click your Local Disk C: in My Computer and select properties. Tools tab, Error- Checking > Check Now button. Check the boxes and hit Start.

get everest home here

click on the + beside computer..then sensor...get a screenshot and post it back here...it will give me the temps and voltages

[Drew7997]

Ok- but that won't happen till tomorrow maybe even in the evening. cause I'm clearing cmos, then runnin memtest for 2 hours, then running chkdsk then everest. THEN i gotta get onto their dialup and upload it. that will take much time, I wish they had fixed their DSL how I told them to. it would make my trouble shooting much easier. I just don't want to take their machine again unless I have to. I'll try to do this first thing in the AM, cause I have to go to Cleveland and work on my sisters brakes, so that will give you time to review and reply.

btw- if I remember right- it only happens on the shutdown, power up. NOT the restart.

[happyrck]

download everest home on your computer...copy to flash drive(usb drive) or burn it to cd to take to their house...then
I would run chkdsk first then everest...write down the temps and voltages then memtest...

[Drew7997]

k- thanks

[Jackiefrost9]

checkdisk won't do a thing.
voltages is a good idea.
Also try to update the bios if nothing else works, but use that as a last resort.

[Drew7997]

Field Value
Sensor Properties
Sensor Type Winbond W83697HF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S8X / K7S8XE / K7VM2 / K7VM4 / K7VT4-4X / K8Upgrade-760GX

Temperatures
Motherboard 38 °C (100 °F)
CPU 52 °C (126 °F)
Maxtor 6E040L0 38 °C (100 °F)

Cooling Fans
CPU 5075 RPM

Voltage Values
CPU Core 1.66 V
+3.3 V 3.30 V
+5 V 4.95 V
+12 V 12.41 V
+5 V Standby 4.95 V
Debug Info F 85 FF FF
Debug Info T 52 38 255
Debug Info V 67 00 CE B8 C1 C2 BE (01)


Why would the bios need updated when nothing was added hardware wise? I'd say ram or mobo.

just got here and had to tinker with it to get it to turn on-installed the Everest and there are the results. I'm rebooting and ding chkdsk then memtest- i'll post back soon with results.

[happyrck]

temps and voltage's look good...at over 5 K on the CPU fan..I'll bet its loud though...
if you decide on playing with the bios I would just set it to default...usually F 5