I startup my computer and nothing appears on screen...

[GeminEye2k5]

Hi all I've been having a problem with my media center PC...It is an HP Pavilion PC and it seems to be having a major problem....I recently upgraded my graphics card from an ATI Radeon X300 to an Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT.....the transition went with no incident...but after almost a year of use one morning I pressed the power button on my PC to regularly boot it up to Windows and there was nothing but a black screen showing up on my monitor.....I can hear the fan spin and power is indeed on but my keyboard numlock light isn't showing as well as the lights on the back of the computer...its actually my brother's computer and he told me he took it to best buy to get it checked out but all they said was that there was nothing wrong with it and that it is just missing a graphics card....that is clearly not the problem since I already removed the card and installed it in my PC to troubleshoot...the card works fine on the other PC...so its clearly not an issue with the videocard right?....now this all happened actually about 2 months ago and the computer has been sitting at home for that amount of time...one day I tried pluggin it up again and installed the Nvidia graphics card and voila!...it runs again without a hitch.....for about a week but then to my dismay it happened again....thats why I'm here.... ....any amount of help will be greatly appreciated.


Edit: I'm sorry I forgot to mention this but this all occured after we moved....I should have pointed that out earlier.

 

[Bruce]

First I'd remove and reseat the ram, or try em one at a time to rule out a bad stick. Then I'd try the PSU.

 

[GeminEye2k5]

Thank you I'm gonna have to try that as soon as I get off of work.

 

[superdave1984]

Do you have another monitor to try? I would say either the monitor is dying or your card is overheating.

 

[kfc469]

does the computer have integrated graphics? If so, the computer may be switching back to that for some reason. Try plugging the monitor into the integrated graphics port and see if it works.

 

[GeminEye2k5]

The monitor I used for it is in use currently on another PC I have and it works fine (no probems what so ever)...I doubt it has anything to do with overheating because I've been using the 6600 GT in my other PC and haven't had any problems with heat period.

The computer doesn't have integrated graphics: the original card that came with the computer was an X300 SE which I upgraded from as I've said in my post.

I already tried installing the original card (X300 SE) and it still won't boot up.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I still have yet to try testing out the RAM to see if one of the sticks are faulty. I pray to god that that could be the only problem as it would be easy to buy another stick and get on with life ^_^

 

[kfc469]

when you first turn the computer does the BIOS come up on the screen? How about the windows loading screen? If so, that would seem to indicate a driver problem.

 

[GeminEye2k5]

nothing comes up....no BIOS, no Windows loading Screen.

When the problem started up again I was in-game and the computer just completely shut-off.... I waited about 30 seconds and pressed the power button and you can hear the cooling fan spin-up and power-supply but nothing else.

If it were a driver problem all I would have to do is update the drivers right? But how can I do that when I can't even log-in to Windows?

 

[ShackledPhoenix]

It's not a driver issue, You're PC's not even getting that far.

When the issue occurs is your PC beeping at all?

Your PC is failing during whats called the POST, Which is where it first starts up the very basics you PC needs to run. If it made it past POST you'd get keyboard lights.

This means either your memory, Processors, motherboard or video card is bad. We've managed to rule out Video card by testing it in another computer.

Processors actually go defective only very rarely unless you overclock em. it COULD be the proc, but I highly doubt it.

Try reseating the memory, or even better, testing it in another PC, or with a stick of memory you KNOW is good.

If it's not the memory, I'd honestly look into replacing the mobo, because well... those bastages go bad quite often.

You can't rule out overheat because the Graphics Card worked in another PC, because any number of parts can overheat, but I'd rule it out because it doesn't take a "Week" for the PC to cool..

Also I'm ruling out the PSU because I've never seen one have intermittent issues like this PC is.

And don't take it to best buy or Frye's, they'll hire any idiot to be tech, trust me on that one. You take it to a tech, take it to something small and local, they usually have guys who know what they are doing.

 

[GeminEye2k5]

if its a Processor or mobo issue thats gonna definitely suck for me....I think I'm out of a warranty also .....I'm feeling impending doom.