MOBO stopped displaying anything ever.

[drewby89]

I built a PC for my parents and the last time I went to their house, the monitor had stopped responding at some point and nobody noticed. When I restarted the computer, I still heard normal boot up sounds and Skype ran at startup, but there was nothing on the screen. Since then, I tried 4 displays and 3 cables (2 VGA which is what I normally run on this machine, and 1 DVI). I pulled out the RAM and tried to switch sockets and the switch sticks with what is in my PC, no change. Unfortunately, now that I changed hardware, the computer will boot directly to the BIOS and I lost my audio cues from Windows startup. To be clear, there is no signal at all from the PC on any output. No splash screen from the MOBO or ability to change settings with MOBO.

My next step is to disassemble everything and try an open air build with only necessary parts to see if that works. Then I'll add my R9 290 and try running video out from it, but I don't really expect that to work without tweaks in BIOS. Any ideas?

AMD A4-6300 Richland Dual-Core 3.7GHz Socket FM2 65W AD6300OKHLBOX
Rosewill Stallion Series RD450-2-SB - 450-Watt ATX V2.2 Power Supply
ASUS A68HM-K FM2+ AMD A68H FCH USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - WD10EZEX - OEM
PNY 8 GB RAM 1600

 

[ffg7]

nothing shows on the screen at all? have you tried another monitor on their computer? have you tried their monitor on another computer to see if it is a monitor issue or onboard video issue?

 

[drewby89]

nothing shows on the screen at all? have you tried another monitor on their computer? have you tried their monitor on another computer to see if it is a monitor issue or onboard video issue?

It's not the monitor because it has the same problem with 3 other monitors too. And I know 2 of those worked with this computer before.

 

[ffg7]

then it is the onboard video that is causing the problem. try clearing the cmos.

 

[drewby89]

What is cmos and how do I clear it?

 

[ffg7]

read the motherboard manual to see how to clear the cmos as it usually involves moving a jumper from 1 pair of pins to another then back again. other way is to disconnect the power cord from the psu, remove the motherboard battery, count to 30, re-install the battery & power cord then turn on the computer.

 

[drewby89]

I read the manual and it said to use a screwdriver to short the pins. There wasn't a jumper with this motherboard or with my own, so I tried the screwdriver and removing the battery for a few minutes and now I don't know if any of that did anything. There's no change, but I'm not certain that it cleared the cmos either.

 

[ffg7]

it cleared it as long you touched both pins at the same time. try just the board with cpu, a stick of ram & the psu connected to the board plus a monitor. disconnect all cables to drives & remove all cards from motherboard. reseat the psu power connectors to motherboard.

 

[drewby89]

I took everything off except for the CPU and RAM, but I reattached the RAM again just to be sure. It worked, so something must have been installed wrong. I'd put money on the RAM being the problem because it only locks into one side on this board and the other side has to be pushed in extra far. Thank you so much for your help through all this! I learned better ways to troubleshoot for next time!

 

[ffg7]

no problem, teach & learn.