No signal to monitor

[Hwy14_]

I bought a Dell 531S at a garage sale. It was filthy so I cleaned it thoroughly. When I turn it on the monitor goes to stand-by. I've tried 5 different monitors and as many or more cable combinations. Always the same result. Would a video card help? Would a recovery disk help?

 

[the_crippler]

If you have a video card, it couldn't hurt to try...but I wouldn't go out and spend money on one without knowing whether the rest of the machine is junk or not. Are you getting all of the appropriate POST sounds when you start it up to know that the machine actually works?

 

[Hwy14_]

If you have a video card, it couldn't hurt to try...but I wouldn't go out and spend money on one without knowing whether the rest of the machine is junk or not. Are you getting all of the appropriate POST sounds when you start it up to know that the machine actually works?

Thanks for your answer so quickly, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I sat the 531s aside and kind of forgot about it. I can only do a hard stop and start so I don't know if it "could" make post sounds. I went ahead and ordered a 5$ video card from e-bay, we'll see. I have an older machine that ran Vista, could I swap out CPU, hard disk, etc.?