My desk top fails to send a usable signal to the monitor, no splash screen, no boot screen. whats wrong?

Question

The desktop is a HP Pavilion a220n, as usual there were no warning signs. I have never had this happen, though I wonder if the hard drive crashed. If anyone has had a similar problem please share your experience, and how you fixed the problem.

If the hard drive has crashed, is it possible to boot from an external removable drive?
What options are available?

Answer 1

Unplug the monitor. Does it show a 'check signal cable', or similar message? If not, check the monitor's user manual, some cheap ones do not, but typically you should see something, so if you do not your monitor is suspect.

Check the cable connections are secure and that there are no bent pins. (Usually not a problem unless the monitor has been unplugged recently)

If you can, try a different monitor. If you can, try your monitor on a different system.

When you turn the system on, do the fans come on and the hard drives spin up? If not then the power supply is probably bad.

If they do spin up, do the hard drives 'chatter' for a minute or so? This is normal while Windows loads. If not, then I would suspect that the CPU or the memory are bad, possibly the hard or optical drives.

If the monitor produce a test message, and the hard drive chatter away normally then I would look at replacing the video card.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Monitor is probably burnt out. Happened to me w/a basically brand-new monitor. If you have an alternate monitor available, try hooking your PC up to that and see if it works.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

The first thing I would do is try another monitor that you know works, but if that fails maybe the ram is blown ? maybe the video card ?