Question Old PC from 2002 boots up, but doesn't display anything

[mentor93]

I brought back from the attic my old PC that my parents bought back in 2002, together with Samsung monitor. I cleaned it (physically) inside and outside and tried to boot it up. The PC does boot up, but doesn't display anything. On the front of the case I can see HDD light is red which I figure might be the root cause of this problem.

The monitor itself definitely works. I have an old notebook from 2007 which still has a VGA port. I plugged monitor into that notebook and it displayed everything nicely.

There was, of course, a lot of dust inside PC. I got rid of it using compressed air, nothing seems to be broken when I look at motherboard, graphics card and other components, but I'm no hardware guy, so I can't tell with 100% certainty. I also couldn't find neither keyboard, nor mouse, but I don't think I should need them to just get my PC to show anything on the monitor?

I really don't know if I need a working HDD for BIOS to show up... I expected to see something, but since literally nothing is displayed and monitor definitely works, the issue might not just be with the HDD. Could you help me here, please? What can I check to be sure that it's HDD that's broken? Do I need to buy a new HDD or can I repair this old one?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

I brought back from the attic my old PC that my parents bought back in 2002, together with Samsung monitor.
When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model.

Moved thread from Storage section to Systems section.

 

[stonecarver]

Can I add to what Lutfij requested. Pictures lots and lot of pictures.

Of motherboard. front of case, back of case. a shot of the power supply if you can of the label on the hard drive.

There might be something you don't see one of us will.

Also if this was a prebuilt. AKA Dell , HP , Gateway , and the model name.

Post pictures on imgur.com and than link here.

 

[johnbl]

old capacitors on old graphic cards can dry out or swell up and then the circuit will have the wrong voltage and not work.
generally they are good for at least 5 years. on old systems they are pretty easy to replace if you can not find a new card.

easy as in, desolder the old capacitors, and solder in new ones. Some capacitors you can look at them and see if they swelled up or leaked some brown fluid out of them.
you will be looking for electrolytic capacitors that failed.
google what they look like, and what the failures look like.
dried out ones you can not see the problem.

some monitors might have to manually switch modes to read a non default video format.