Monitor not getting a signal

[realitytripz]

Hi everyone, this is my first time here and yes I'm a beginner. I have a comp that I built from scratch about 3 years ago and have done a few upgrades to it every now and then. (Vid-card, MB,processor.) Well, just recently I sold my comp to my little brother and it continued running solid for a while. Later on he told me it stopped working so I checked it out. It seemed that the monitor wasnt getting a signal from the vid-card during start up, it would just stay in standby (yellow light) even though the rest of the comp was running. So the first thing I checked was the monitor, so I hooked the comp to my 2nd brothers monitor, same thing happened.

So, I bought a brand new MB for the heck of it, needed a new one anyway as a ram slot was faulty on the old one. When I installed the new MB, and did a fresh install of windows XP something changed. Now, the monitor will get a signal only when I do a hard reboot. If I turn the computer on and go through windows and do a restart the monitor will not get a signal, same as if I go through windows and select shutdown. If I do that I have to turn the computer on, turn it off, turn it on again to get the monitor to catch the signal. The vide-card is a radeon 9800 XT AGP, I Can't test it because my new comp doesnt have an AGP slot and my 2nd brother's comp doesn't have a high enough power supply. So, I installed a new AGP card I bought for my 2nd brother into the comp with the problem and the monitor didnt get a signal from that card either and the same exact problem persisted. This is driving me insane.

With my luck it is probably something really trivial that I keep over-looking (or beyond the knowledge of computers that I have so far). Could it be something with the BIOS? Should I download the newest BIOS from the web site and flash it?? Has anyone ever had this exact problem happen to them before? I would really prefer to fix this before I have to resort to bringing it somewhere else and paying someone else to fix it. Please help me!!! Thanks in advance!

PS: comp stats are: Windows XP Home ed. PCCHIPS M848A mother-board, AMD Athlon XP 3000, Generic Dell flatscreen monitor( nothing special), Thermaltake TR2-430W power supply, ATI Radeon 9800 XT.

 

[muz]

does that pc chips board have onboard video if it foes you need to turn that off in the bios that may stop your problem

otherwisemonitor could be shot , test the monitor on another comp or laptop if possible

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Sounds like it could be a power supply issue. Can you try a PSU from another computer?

 

[realitytripz]

Well, I double checked the manual for the MB, no onboard video. I hooked up the comp to my other brother's monitor, and that monitor acted the same as the other one, same exact problem. I then took the monitor for the problem-computer and hooked it up to my 2nd brothers comp, and it worked fine, no problems. I can't test the radeon because of the reasons stated above, but I did use the AGP card from my 2nd brother's PC and the same problem still happened even though it worked fine in the other computer. I'm gonna try switching the memory sticks out/around and see of that helps, but if not do you think flashing the BIOS could help? I am not really super familiar with all of the BIOS things yet. If the mother board is the problem, then it won't rattle my cage that bad as it was inexpensive anyway.

 

[realitytripz]

Sounds like it could be a power supply issue. Can you try a PSU from another computer?

I'll see if I can crack open my dell and use that power supply, but my 2nd brother's comp's PSU isn't strong enough, and the power supply in the problem-PC is brand new, I just bought it to try and fix the problem, I guess it could be bad, but everything seems like it is running fine.