Hey everyone, I'm new to the forums, so bare with me. I was recently asked to fix a friends Hp Desktop ( a6647c ), Intel Pentium* Dual Core, 4GB RAM, Windows Vista 64-bit. They told me someone was playing a game on a site (I believe Nickelodeon) and they were asked to download something. Apparently they were not in the room. I guess when they returned the PC had BSOD. So they did a forced shut off and rebooted. I guess BIOS popped up and then a screen indicating Windows can not be properly started. They preceded to try and boot in to recovery in which they received another BSOD. After the next reboot the PC lost the ability to receive the monitor signal. The tower itself starts up (No Sounds, or hardware beeps), Fans start up normally, DVD drive normally, HDD seems to start but no monitor signal.
At first I thought it was a driver issue, virus or malware, or possibly even the on board graphic adapter. I decided to first make sure it wasn't a monitor issue. So I brought it home and plugged it into my monitor (Cheapo MAG flat panel monitor) with no luck, I then tried a CRT monitor with no luck, then I tried a newer LCD monitor still with no luck and a little overkill. I then removed all unnecessary hardware (sd card readers, dvd drive, mouse, sata HDD) still nothing. I then decided that I would make sure it wasn't a bios issue so I removed the CMOS battery and cleared it. Still nothing. After that I finally said it has to be the on board graphic adapter so I installed a Nvidia PCI card in. Still nothing! I preceded to replace the HDD, RAM, PSU with some in-working condition ones around my house. Still nothing. This has led me to believe the problem is with the Motherboard or CPU. I know there are a lot of intelligent people on this forum so is it safe to say that my assumptions are probably correct? Should I just replace the motherboard? Is there anything you would try before replacing it?
Sorry for the long post just really wanted to be detailed. I hope it was in depth enough to understand the problem. Thanks in advance for the help.
Note: I was able to place the HDD in my own computer and retrieve important documents they had saved. I also tried replacing my own HDD with theirs just to see if it would load. I was able to get bios to start but it said windows couldn't start because I was missing important hardware or something in that ball field. I'm not even sure it would be possible since i'm running a AMD board with Windows 7 32-bit.
Thanks again.
Chase
At first I thought it was a driver issue, virus or malware, or possibly even the on board graphic adapter. I decided to first make sure it wasn't a monitor issue. So I brought it home and plugged it into my monitor (Cheapo MAG flat panel monitor) with no luck, I then tried a CRT monitor with no luck, then I tried a newer LCD monitor still with no luck and a little overkill. I then removed all unnecessary hardware (sd card readers, dvd drive, mouse, sata HDD) still nothing. I then decided that I would make sure it wasn't a bios issue so I removed the CMOS battery and cleared it. Still nothing. After that I finally said it has to be the on board graphic adapter so I installed a Nvidia PCI card in. Still nothing! I preceded to replace the HDD, RAM, PSU with some in-working condition ones around my house. Still nothing. This has led me to believe the problem is with the Motherboard or CPU. I know there are a lot of intelligent people on this forum so is it safe to say that my assumptions are probably correct? Should I just replace the motherboard? Is there anything you would try before replacing it?
Sorry for the long post just really wanted to be detailed. I hope it was in depth enough to understand the problem. Thanks in advance for the help.
Note: I was able to place the HDD in my own computer and retrieve important documents they had saved. I also tried replacing my own HDD with theirs just to see if it would load. I was able to get bios to start but it said windows couldn't start because I was missing important hardware or something in that ball field. I'm not even sure it would be possible since i'm running a AMD board with Windows 7 32-bit.
Thanks again.
Chase
