Video card? New Hard drive, bad CMOS memory

[huynh]

Hi all,
I have received a Sony Vaio PCV-RS510 from a friend without the hard drive, no original CD. He gave it to me because it gave him a black screen with "No signal" message.
I have seeked helps from www.allexperts.com and was suggested to clear the CMOS memory. I bought a new hard drive, asked for original softwares from SONY.
Then, I put the hard drive in, put the original softwares (I burned them into a CD), but still received the "No Signal" message!!!
I opened the case and could see all the lights on, the fans ran OK...
I searched the "No signal" error and found out that it might be because of the video card. I am quite sure that the original video card is integrated into the motherboard. I am going to buy a new video card.
I will have in hands the CD with original softwares from SONY, the manual CD for the hard drive and the CD for the new video card.
What should I do now? Please help. Any idea would be appreciated.
My email is huynh@wans.net just in case someone wants to help me faster.
Thanks a lot!

 

[Tommy Boy]

Well first of all, I would install the video card and see what happens. If in fact the onboard video is gone that should be the solution. The only other reason for a "No Signal" error is the monitors cable being loose or bad.

 

[prosser13]

No Signal means that the monitor is recieving no video feed from the PC. Try a seperate video card, or look for jumpers on the motherboard that might enable the onboard video.

 

[setishock]

Tommy's right in getting the new vid card in. You're pretty much going to be dead in the water if you can't see what you're doing. But at this point any VGA card would do fine for trouble shooting. There may be other problems with this system that may make it not cost effective to try to fix.

 

[Tommy Boy]

Yeah, I don't know if I would buy a new video card, see if someone has one that you could borrow, or maybe you might have one laying around. Just to put in temporarily to see if the pc actually works before you go spending any more money on it.

 

[huynh]

Hi,

I checked the monitor with another computer and it worked just fine. So, I can say that the monitor cable is OK.

I used a video card from an older HP computer, but it did not work (still "No signal") that made me wonder if I have to have the drive for the video card to make it work.

I will try it again to see what will happen next.

Thank you very much for all your helps.

(30 minutes later)
I did check it with the other video card again: did not work! Still No Signal!
I put the card back in the HP computer and it worked (with the same monitor). Now, I can be sure that the monitor cable is good.

What next? Do not know!
Still need helps!

 

[iceshooter161]

I could be completely wrong with this so someone else please correct me but if there is onboard video, doesn't he have to disable it in the bios before the computer will recognize the video card?

 

[huynh]

Hi all,
I am not good at computer, but I am thinking about it.
The new card I put in would not work once the integrated card is still there.
I do not know how to disable it though. The monitor is still black; and I am completely blind.

 

[Tommy Boy]

I could be completely wrong with this so someone else please correct me but if there is onboard video, doesn't he have to disable it in the bios before the computer will recognize the video card?

No, it will recognize the PCI card without disabling the onboard video. You should disable it once you get everything up and running though.

Sounds to me like you have a motherboard problem then, did you try a different PCI slot? If that doesn't work, then I'd say that your motherboard is junk.

 

[huynh]

Hi,
Thank you very much for all your great helps.

I don't have a PCI video card. The old video card that I have works for the slot that I have the arrow below:

Should I try another PCI video card?

OK, let's say that the mobo is a junk. Any idea of compatible mobo that I can buy to replace that junk? On my mobo, it says, "P4SD - VL".