Any ideas on monitor not displaying? Im stumped...

slim01 · 27 Oct 2010 at 19:14

Im doing up an old PC from my garage to sell to someone but my monitors are displaying nothing... im trying to connect using a blue 15 pin Dsub cable i got off off ebay (turned up damaged, so may be the problem - one pin was a little bent and the outside casing so I carefully bent it back with some needle pliers).

>system seems to power on fine, although i am installing a speaker beeper now to see if there is any post noises.
>orange HDD light (i think) seems to be constantly on.
>computer NEVER used to use the blue dsub before, in fact it had a plater covering it saying "Do Not Use" - presumably because the PC had a DVI port - it used dvi from a 7800gt gfx card which has now gone.
>I have installed someone elses hard drive into the case, as well as a sound card AND a cd drive(shouldnt matter should it?)
>power light comes on PSU when plugged in, and everything seems like its powered up, cd drive works
>Tried it on my 17" lcd - "no signal" tried it on my 1080p tv - "signal not supported"
>ON MY TV THE COMPAQ NAME DOES SHOW BRIEFLY, AND THE LINES OF WRITING ARE VERY CHOPPY AND FUZZY, like a fuzzy kind of v sync tearing.

Its a compaq presario sr1000 product - sr1639uk
Was using XP, and new hdd put in has XP also

This was working 1 month ago, do you think this cable i have could be causing the problem?? It LOOKS ok now ive fixed it, seems to screw in the the mobo and my LCD's ok. Cables are usually fine, im gonna order another though

THANKS IN ADVANCE

Surveyor · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:10

Sounds like the cable is knackered.

What connections does your monitor have?

If it has DVI try the DVI output from the PC (if you have a DVI cable).

If it only has VGA do you have a DVI to VGA adapter? You could then try using the VGA cable from the DVI connector.

slim01 · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:23

Surveyor said:
Sounds like the cable is knackered.

What connections does your monitor have?

If it has DVI try the DVI output from the PC (if you have a DVI cable).

If it only has VGA do you have a DVI to VGA adapter? You could then try using the VGA cable from the DVI connector.

I have yeah got LOADS of DVI - d--sub, thing is theyre all dam DVI-I or somethihng and wont fit. my mate gave me a load of cables, seems he missed a few though!! PC does not have DVI, it USED to with the old GPU. I think it still thinks theres a GPU to display from, but ive tried resrtting cmos.
Im gonna try my PCI-e PGU in there, so that i can try a known working cable now .... although that does present more possible faults...

I have 1600 x 1200 monitor with usual DVI-D (i think) and blue 15pin Dsub
I have 1080p TV (this one, which i am currently using to fault test) which has DVI, HDMI, D-Sub.

bremen1874 · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:25

It's always worth trying a bios reset.

Sorry, just seen that you've already tried.

slim01 · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:27

bremen1874 said:
It's always worth trying a bios reset.

ive tried resrtting cmos. shall i try again, leave the chip out overnight?

RJC · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:35

I am wondering if the onboard gpu was disabled in some way, especially as it had the cap on the port, can you try another card on the pci-e or AGP slot.

slim01 · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:42

RJC said:
I am wondering if the onboard gpu was disabled in some way, especially as it had the cap on the port, can you try another card on the pci-e or AGP slot.

Yeah thats what i think, but clearing the cmos shud change that right??

Thats what im doing now, just realised theres another compaq dont the other end of the house, that has a AGP card though i think, but i will try it with the D-SUb cable, if it does exactly the same thing at least i can rule the cable out. Dam cables attached to the monitor though so i gotta take this pc all the way down and set it up there.

If the GPU in the other comp is AGP, ill have to risk trying to use my own

Orcvader · 27 Oct 2010 at 21:54

Not really part of the problem, but you placed in a HDD with XP already installed? Wouldn't that cause some motherboard driver issues, assuming that XP was installed on a different PC?

slim01 · 27 Oct 2010 at 22:35

Orcvader said:
Not really part of the problem, but you placed in a HDD with XP already installed? Wouldn't that cause some motherboard driver issues, assuming that XP was installed on a different PC?

UPDATE > I have tried the PC next to a very similar compaq I had lying around and found out
1) These PCs DO NOT seem to beep once to confirm a succesfull post, rules that out
2) I tried with the other PCs monitor, and this time it DOES display on the monitor "Disk OS failure, press enter to load..... (or something like that, im sure you've seen it before), which is good
3) These PCs seem to NOT like booting from the mobo D-Sub or without a GPU - I tried on BOTH PCs to change the primary display from PCI/AGP to ONBOARD, and run from the mobos D-SUB, and no change in the pc we are talking about, and the other PC showed no display at all. :confused:

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SO - New problem = Pc is posting, but the writing on screen is very fuzzy, like its being re-processed and displayed in a slightly different place.
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Do you think that starting it up with another version of XP on the HDD would have really screwed with the drivers??? Would a driver issue have caused the screen to go all fuzzy?? I might try re-installing windows if thats the case, see if i still get the same issue, then look for years for drivers.

Sigh, there shall be cake at the end of this.