Question Computer powers on, but we get no signal on any of the two screens we tried it on.

Gogomal

Reputable
Jun 21, 2017
4
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4,510
Hello, this pc has a huge story but I will try to condense it. If you feel like there is missing information please be sure to ask and I'll respond or add it here if possible.

This is for a pc that is old (uses ddr2) and my mom uses it to watch movies on the TV in the living room.

One day she used it, powered it off, and then the next day she wanted to watch a movie with my brother so she tried to power on and nothing happened.
The pc from that day wasnt powering on. Some time passed and we ended up among other things, re-applying thermal paste, and re-seating the cpu. When we did that the pc powered on again.

But that's when the current problem occured. No image on the screen. We had a second gpu in hand, different hdmi and vga cables, different screens. We tried all of those. Nothing. Still no image. We figured something is broken.
We get a cpu and mb used from a dude that said they havent been used in a while but tested them recently and they worked fine.

We put those on. Still same issue. We then figure out we got another psu and another stick of ram that back in the day we just removed and upgraded [aka should still work].

We get all of those and make all sorts of different system combinations, with old and new parts and everything. We even confirmed the "new" psu worked on my brothers pc which he made like a couple years ago.

We know the cables work and the TVs / screens work fine.

But we still get no image. We tried using the mb, cpu and ram to just power up the pc and see if we can get anything to happen. Still nothing.

Sometimes the pc would power up, then restart on its own and then stay on for a bit. Sometimes the pc wouldnt respond to my power off button so id have to unplug it. That seemed to happen when we didnt have all of the components in.

When we added any gpu I think that problem seemed to have stopped. Also we stopped getting that restart.

So lastly we had 2 random builds we made out of all those components, and both give us the same result. No image.

I think I also tried to boot without battery and re-seated battery in both mb at some point too. forgot to mention that. Also we dont hear any beeps when the pc turns on but im not confident that the speaker cable works so idk if that means anything. Also we have tried every ram combo and without ram also.

Components:

old pc:
cpu: intel core 2 duo 6400
mb: g31m3 ms-7528
ram: cm2x2048 corsair 6400c5dhx
gpu: n630gt-md2gd3
psu: chieftec gps-400aa-101a

new items that were bought or found in our house that we used to test different combinations:

cpu: Pentium 4 631
mb: asus p5n mx
gpu: radeon hd8570
ram: supertalent t6ub1gc5
psu: corsair cx600m

I don't really understand what could be wrong, and I don't really have any more ideas for things to try so I figured I'd post here.

Let me know! Sorry if this was confusing. I hope I included enough things. Sorry for the huge post.
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
To be blunt, both those PSU's aren't meant to be inside a PC or anywhere near a build. How did you verify which components were working and which ones were seemingly fired by your chieftec PSU? Is the 5870 you own the 1GB version or the 2GB version?

Might want to include the make and model of the TV/display as well.
 

Gogomal

Reputable
Jun 21, 2017
4
0
4,510
To be blunt, both those PSU's aren't meant to be inside a PC or anywhere near a build.

attitude doesnt help me fix anything, so if you cant put it on the side and not bring it into my post id appreciate if u dont try to help me anymore. ill wait for other responses.

How did you verify which components were working and which ones were seemingly fired by your chieftec PSU? Is the 5870 you own the 1GB version or the 2GB version?

monitors work cause they are used either as tvs or on other computers in the house. the corsair psu works cause i used it on my brothers pc to verify that it works. the chieftec i got no idea and i dont use it anymore since idk if it works or not. the one that was plugged in after the test was the corsair one that was verified.
the chieftec is the one the pc came with years ago and has worked fine the whole time. so i think it works still since both psus give me the same behavior on the pc. considering one is verified and one isnt. if that makes sense.

the 2 gb one.

Might want to include the make and model of the TV/display as well.

no need they both work fine. and one of them was the monitor that the pc was used on the whole time. dont see why suddenly a monitor would become an issue.