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gate4exec
Pilgrim
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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 Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:38 pm Post subject: PC booting, but nothing on the monitor |
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My neighbors PC might be dead and I'm trying to trouble-shoot it for him.
This is the PC that he owns, Sony pvc-rs620g:
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/specs/PCVRS620G_mksp.pdf
The computer starts up, but nothing is showing on the screen.
We've tried three different monitors (2 VGA & 1 DVI) and none work, so I thought it might be a Video card issue.
If the hard drive was dead, would it even start?
Does anyone know what might be wrong?
Last edited by gate4exec on Fri Sep 13, 2013 7:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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evasive
Mobo-fu Master
Joined: 06 May 2001
Posts: 36479
Location: Netherlands, Breda
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| Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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Does it even beep? Have you gone through the troubleshooting sticky post in this forum (disconnecting stuff to a bare system and see what will boot)?
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Karlsweldt
Enlightened Master
Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 18694
Location: 07438
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 6:51 am Post subject: |
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A hard drive may spin up, fans may spin.. but no other activity may be due to a dead BIOS battery. If more than 2 years since the battery was replaced, do so and see what happens. Could be something more serious, but maybe a simple fix. Be sure to go through the BIOS pages and reset status as to how the system is set up, after replacing the battery.
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gate4exec
Pilgrim
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 7:15 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the replies. I have a similar old PC, so decided to swap items for testing purposes.
I thought it might be the video card, so I swapped cards and that didn't work.
I then swapped BIOS batteries and that didn't seem to do anything either. (I assume these batteries are all the same for old PCs - CR2032?)
I swapped hard drives and that didn't work. However, I did take the neighbors hard drive and it booted up in my old PC, so at least that's good news and they can get the data off of it.
I'm not sure what else to test. I probably should check all of the internal connections (ribbon cables?), but I don't have any extras and it seems like a pain in the butt to do.
I'm no expert, but I think something on the motherboard has died.
Am I missing anything else to test?
I'll look for the trouble shooting thread (didn't realize there was one). |
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bdub
Black Belt 3rd Degree
Joined: 19 Feb 2003
Posts: 3348
Location: Washington D.C.
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:56 am Post subject: |
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power supply swap... and ram swap, or taking all but one stick out, then going thru stick by stick.
but i'm thinking power supply.
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gate4exec
Pilgrim
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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| bdub wrote: | power supply swap... and ram swap, or taking all but one stick out, then going thru stick by stick.
but i'm thinking power supply. |
Hmm... I've never messed with power supplies. Are they interchangeable? If so, I'll pop out my old one (assuming it's easy to do) and try it out.
RAM is easy to mess with, so I'll do that first.
Thanks for the input!
You guys rock. |
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gate4exec
Pilgrim
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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The power supply swap looks like a nightmare of wires. Not sure I'm up for the task.
I took an air compressor and cleaned out the dust and now removing RAM sticks. Amazingly, it booted up once with one stick of RAM. Upon trying other sticks, it's failing. I put back the stick that was in when it booted up, but it's not working again.
What is causing this inconsistent booting? |
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gate4exec
Pilgrim
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, well the power supply wasn't that complicated.
I took my old one out and plugged it into the other PC.
I only made three connections (two white plugs that went into the Motherboard, and the third into the primary drive). I didn't bother plugging power into the cd drive or floppy. Did I do this correctly?
Anyway, no result. Still nothing on the screen.
So, can I rule out power supply? |
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gate4exec
Pilgrim
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 10:20 pm Post subject: |
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| omg. It's a virus! This is one of the nastiest virus' I've ever encountered. It's attacking the hardware. How is this even possible? |
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evasive
Mobo-fu Master
Joined: 06 May 2001
Posts: 36479
Location: Netherlands, Breda
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| Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 1:16 am Post subject: |
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It is corrupting the bios? That is a loong time I've seen one of those. Almost impossible. What makes you say this?
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