no video but computer turns on

O

OUCH

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well i have this really old compaq 5014us, and never failed me til now. recently went to turn on the comp and the screen does not show anything but the power on the computer works. the hard disk light (busy light) stays completely lite. i tried everything from putting in a new hard drive, changing video card, testing old hard drive, changing memory slots, removing and changing memory. No luck, but one thing i noticed is when i did not put any memory at all isnt the computer suppose to make a beeping noise to alert the user there is no memory? I found this strange, any suggestions? I think its the motherboard finally got murdered
 
does the motherboard have on-board video? Maybe the BIOS flipped and it's defaulting to that. Not all mobos beep for memory errors, some have LED codes, flashing lights, etc. Using a PCI or AGP slot? Is that the only slot?
 
agp slot, how would bios flip the video out? there is only agp also, any suggestions>?
 
OUCH said:
agp slot, how would bios flip the video out? there is only agp also, any suggestions>?
Click to expand...

it's not unheard of, especially if you have on-board video also. Hop into the BIOS and check any of the settings related to AGP and/or graphics. If you've never touched the BIOS reset the default config for quickness. Is your GPU getting power like, is the fan spinning on the card? have you tried the monitor on a different PC?
 
how am i suppose to hope into bios if i cant see anything on the monitor? the fan is spinning on the video card and elsewhere. i forgot to mention it is not jsut the monitor because i tried a different monitor same issue. (and both work fine on other computers). how do i reset bios to default without an image on screen? ive never tried clearing cmos, would that help?
 
Use the onboard graphics if you have it.

I had the exact same problem and it turned out to be 2 dead DVI ports on the video card.
 
OUCH said:
how am i suppose to hope into bios if i cant see anything on the monitor? the fan is spinning on the video card and elsewhere. i forgot to mention it is not jsut the monitor because i tried a different monitor same issue. (and both work fine on other computers). how do i reset bios to default without an image on screen? ive never tried clearing cmos, would that help?
Click to expand...

clearing CMOS is precisely what you need to do. Pulling the battery from the slot and powering on the machine usually resets it, then just power off, replace, and power on again.

Maybe I'm wrong but I still don't know if you've mentioned the presence of on-board video.
 
there is on board video...but i tried so many things last night...i believe i removed video card and tried on board but it didnt work. just to make sure ill try on board again before clearing cmos. ill be doing this sunday since im going to vegas in after work. thanks for the suggestions, but keep more coming please, anything will help. =)
 
OUCH said:
there is on board video...but i tried so many things last night...i believe i removed video card and tried on board but it didnt work. just to make sure ill try on board again before clearing cmos. ill be doing this sunday since im going to vegas in after work. thanks for the suggestions, but keep more coming please, anything will help. =)
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan. Oftentimes the BIOS will disable on-board video in the presence of PCI or AGP GPU. So, the BIOS would need to be altered or cleared in order to enable that on-board card again. If that works then it sounds like a bad AGP slot/bus.

More suggestions? Well, if your monitor has different inputs use the monitor's menu to select Auto or VGA or DVI just to manually select the input you know to be good. For instance make sure DVI isn't selected if you're really using VGA.
 
well i tried 2 different things, tried on board video and also clearing cmos. No luck. But one thing i did notice is the keyboard locks dont light up nor does the light on the optical mouse plugged in, does this mean the motherboard might have died? i checked the fan on the video card and the fan is working?
 
i would really hate to just buy another motherboard for such an old computer, i think the motherboard has died, because no lights on the keyboard or mouse light up when plugged in. But why would the fan on the video card be spinning?
 
OUCH said:
i would really hate to just buy another motherboard for such an old computer, i think the motherboard has died, because no lights on the keyboard or mouse light up when plugged in. But why would the fan on the video card be spinning?
Click to expand...

Well, some motherboards don't power on the lights of a keyboard or mouse until after the BIOS POSTs and starts loading the operating system. They might still work (e.g. you can press DEL to enter BIOS even when no lights are on). Do you have a USB to PS/2 converter? Devices on PS/2 light up during the POST.

But that doesn't seem to matter much, looks like you're running out of things to try. I wouldn't replace the motherboard either. Keep the case, take the HDDs, CD/DVD Rom and buy a barebones set for cheap.
 
ronpaul said:
Well, some motherboards don't power on the lights of a keyboard or mouse until after the BIOS POSTs and starts loading the operating system. They might still work (e.g. you can press DEL to enter BIOS even when no lights are on). Do you have a USB to PS/2 converter? Devices on PS/2 light up during the POST.

But that doesn't seem to matter much, looks like you're running out of things to try. I wouldn't replace the motherboard either. Keep the case, take the HDDs, CD/DVD Rom and buy a barebones set for cheap.
Click to expand...

i was using a mouse with usb and keyboard with ps/2
 
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