I went to turn on my computer today and it powers up but the light is orange not green as usual. No video signal is going to the monitor at all when the power is turned on. I opened it up and blew everything out with a can of air but it didn't help. I recently started using it with my tv using a dvi to hdmi cable and noticed it was kind of hit or miss if the tv could recieve signal from the pc. I'm kind of leaning towards the video card bit the dust but I do not know enough to say for sure. What can I do to troubleshoot to get an idea of what it is? If it is the video card can I install a new card without installing the drivers first? I'm not sure if this is enough info to get any help but I figured it's worth a shot. If nothing else I can have the IT guys at work look at it. The computer is a Dell E510, 3.17 ghz intel pentium d, 4 gig ram, media center edition if that helps.
A bad video card will cause the problems you are describing. Borrow a card and throw it in and see if it works.
Alright thanks guys, I will start with blowing out the slot and see if that helps. Can you just swap video cards without installing the driver for it?
It's hard to install drivers when the pc doesn't boot up and has no video out put lol Cleaning the slot didn't help so I will have to try swap cards and see if it works.
does it beep. if it dosnt that could mean its not posting because of dead ram proccessor exectra and the video card is fine.
The beep you hear after it does its system configuration (not sure what that's called) before it switches to you os startup screen? Cause that I do not hear.
yes the beep you here before you see the os start to load. if u do not hear it then it could indicate another problem
Swapping cards might work. But before you try that, do you have onboard video? If yes, pull the card and try using that. If that works, card is dead.
I tried pulling the video card and using the on board video but it's still not working. Any other things I can try before I bring it to the IT guys at work.
Here's what I see: No POST sound. Yellow indicator where it should be green. To me, that screams motherboard/ram/cpu. To be sure, the first thing I'd do is unplug everything except for the hard drive that houses your OS, INCLUDING the power to them. Also, remove any cards...video, sound, etc... Try booting it up. If that doesn't boot, remove the power and data cable to the main hard drive. Boot again. Still nothing on the onboard VGA? Call Dell support, or start checking around at Microcenter or GenNan (terrible prices sometimes) or my favorite, NewEgg for deals on mobo/cpu/ram combos. Alternatively, if you are feeling frisky and you have a nice piece of cardboard lying around. Gut the entire system from the case, plug it all back in laying on a piece of cardboard. I had issues like this with a case that was shorting things out.
Agree. The thing should post beep at the least. If it doesn't, you've got a mobo or CPU issue. If you know what you're doing, troubleshoot as Mixx says (unplug all, plug in until you find the culprit). If you don't know what you're doing, plan to buy a new computer .
Comp won't post without Ram. Although if the mobo and cpu are working properly, you should get a loud mobo beep stating their is no memory.
