Computer monitor not turning on!

[lodfreak]

Ok ok... how to start the story. I built this computer probably about 1/2 a year ago, and now its starting to give me problems. When I go to turn the computer on, the monitor doesn't turn on like it usually does with it (I leave the computer monitor on). When I go to turn off the monitor and turn it back on, the only thing that comes up is the control panel for the monitor. I've seen this problem happen before, but in that case it was a DIMM slot problem. I tried swapping out the RAM but nothing was fixed. Next, I thought it may have been the motherboard. I went out and got a Fatality mobo, and the problem seemed like it was fixed. It stayed that way for about a week then the same problem started to occur again. Next step up. I thought it was my video card (BFG 7800 GT OC 256Mb) so I went ahead and called them to get my card replaced. About 2 weeks later I get my card in, really excited. I go to pop it into place and still... the same problem. The only other thing I can think of is that maybe its a power supply issue. The rest of my computer is getting power, so I'm just really confused. My computer is just a big paper weight right now and has been that way for about a month.

Computer Specs:

Mobo: Fatality AN8 Sli

Processor: AMD 64 3500+

RAM: Corsair 1Gb

PSU: 600 Watt (Don't know the name brand) SLi

Video Card: BFG 7800 GT OC 256Mb

HD: Western Digital 250Gb

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Let me answer some of the questions that I know I'm going to get.

Q: Did you try reseating the video card?
A: Yes, one million times.

Q: Is the monitor turned on?
A: Yes...

Q: Did you check all the cables?
A: Yep

Um... Can't think of any others. Thank you ahead of time for your input!

 

[macdude425]

Q: Have you tried the monitor on another computer, and are you sure there isn't a short in the monitor? I went to the trouble of buying my dad a brand new video card once, only to find there was a short in the monitor's cable.

 

[lodfreak]

Ah, that was another question I should have put on my own little Q and A portion. What I have now is a flat LCD monitor, and I also thought that could have been the problem. I got one of my older CRT monitors and tried that. Same thing happened. I tried both monitors on my brothers computer and they bothed worked fine.

 

[Law]

What about the place your are pluging the monitor power to. Have you check to see maybe it's not getting enough power? Monitors need their own power and they take it directly as A/C of 115 volts or less, they don't rely nothing on the PSU of your computer. If you are plugging this into a power surge that may have to many devices connected to it, this monitor might suffer from low power consumption when it needs more. Other causes could be the video card, the card does not have to be faulty it self and sometime if it's not getting adaquate power it may not be able to startup. Your PSU and MB voltage setting may be the source of the problem. I would try a barebone boot up, that is with just the basic hardware needed to start the machine up successfully. The CPU, RAM, VID card, and keyboard. Start it up and if you hear 1 beep then you could start to power it down and plug the monitor for visual. Then if all goes well start adding your devices back

 

[TehBestEver]

I had this very problem after attempting my first overclock. My computer turned on but my monitor got no signal. Someone refered me to a tutorial and it said I had to take the little battery out of the motherboard to reset the bios. I did that and it worked fine. I just don't remember where the tutorial was. Just a thought!

 

[lodfreak]

I had a lot of devices plugged into a surge protecter. I took the monitor out of the bunch and gave it its own wall outlet. Didn't really do much for me As far as the BIOS goes, I tried that once and thats when I got it to work for a couple weeks, then the same problem happened. I guess I could do that every two weeks (that is if it worked again). That would be a hassel.


EDIT: Well, I tried pulling the CMOS battery out and putting it back in. That got my computer turning on just fine. After a bit, I decided I was going to try to restart my computer. The problem came again. This makes me even more confused. Has anyone ever seen this happen before?


Update: I just realized that BFG sent me the wrong card. This card is still compatable with my mobo, but it's different than the one I sent out to get RMA'd. I sent out a 7800 GT OC and got back a 7800 GTX OC. Cool

 

[lodfreak]

Ok, done a little messing around for the past couple days and here's what I found out so far. If i unplug my PSU from the wall so my mobo isn't getting any power, then take out my CMOS battery, pop it back in, put the computer together and fire it up it starts just fine. The problem is that I have to do that every time I want to restart my comptuer at all. I was just wondering if reformatting the harddrive would fix this problem? Anybody know?

 

[Law]

Not sure if formating will help, because it sounds more like a BIOS or motherboard problem.

 

[lodfreak]

I used to have another ABIT mobo when this first started happening. I went out and bought the Fatal1ty one thinking that would fix the problem. It worked for about a week or so then it started happening again. I tried updating the BIOS also, that also didn't work

EDIT: I thought earlier it could have been a BIOS problem as well. Well, last time I tried updating my BIOS there was no update available. I just checked again, and what do you know. There was a new update. Of course, I updated then it asked me to restart my comptuer. Normally, the computer would have the same issue as my trying to turn it on. It didn't! I'm just praying that that was the problem and now it's solved. Thanks for all your help and ideas guys. I'll let you all know how this turned out and if the problem is gone for good

EDIT #2: *Sighs* I just can't win. That didn't seem to fix the problem after all. I just got one lucky boot. All I know is that I think I'm giving up on ABIT mobo's. I have a couple other computers I built one with an MSI mobo (been working fine for 2+ years) and a couple $4000 dollar computers with DFI mobo's. Well, I'm up to new suggestions now

 

[Sui]

.... does the computer post, or continue to boot? When you try to turn it on what happens? Do the fans turn on? does it turn on for 3 seconds and then turn off? Monitor doesn't turn on only indicates that it has no signal, this could be 100's of things.

Do you have a volt meter? Might want to check the power coming from the wall to to take it out of the equation. 600 watt no-name psu? or is it a good brand? Might want to check the voltage its putting out by testing a molex. That motherboard you have has an digital led on the board right? Is it coding anything during this no ......... no monitor turn on thing?

We might as well have the full specs on this thing too. Is that all the hardware on this thing, IDE or Sata, CD drive, any USB stuff?