PC Help PLX!!

hokay.. soo....

 

i turn my pc off one night, and turn it back on the next day. fires right up. monitors stay black. no signal being sent to them, so im all WTF m8. there was no new hardware put in, no new software updates or installations i can speak of. just turned it off. and boom no more monitors.

 

im running a single XFX 9800 gt 512 mb. i have dual monitors screen spanned (cloned). i unplug one of the monitors, restart it a fwe times, and boom the one monitor fires up, and im good to go. plug the other one back in, reset the settings and im back to screen spanning. this goes on for 2-3 weeks. i have to go thru this scharade (sp?) every day. finally one day. no go.

 

i pull out the vid card, take it to my sisters house, works like a charm. the memory is fine too as far as i know. I shorted the bios using the jumper on the board. still nothing. ive reseated everything, checked the power cables. at this point, im thinking it's the motherboard...

 

Axiom is doing our *wipeathon* this saturday (12 hours raid!!) it's awesome, we have a blast, and it looks like im going to miss it *Q*

 

any ideas? ive been building pc's and fixing them and whatnot for about 5 years now.. and im at a loss.

 

other specs are:

socket AM2 dual core athalon 2.6ghz, been running it at just under 3.0 ghz, OC'd with a giant ruby orb CPU cooler. (it runs cooler than regular clock speedwith factory heatsink.)

2 gb - 800 mhz DDR2 crucial tracer memory.

running an ABIT mobo. it was close to top of the line at the time i bought it around 2 years ago.

2 DVD burners (lightscribe ftw)

and a few sata hard drives in there.

800 watt ultra power supply.

 

pretty basic setup.

 

any input would be mucho appreciado

After reading everything you have done I have nothing new to offer except this:

 

Many occasions in the past my monitor would stay black when I started up the PC, and I found that (for me) this was always solved by plugging in the power cable for the monitor into another outlet. Apparently I was shorting whichever one it was plugged in to, and switching it to another outlet fixed it instantly.

 

Not much, but it's all I got =P

There should be a button on the front of your monitor that says 'Power' or something similar.... I need you to push it.

 

*This response dedicated to Chris, Jon, Ben and anyone else that has answered these types of questions before*

Ohhhh Ghost, ILU

There should be a button on the front of your monitor that says 'Power' or something similar.... I need you to push it.

 

In a moment, I shall push these buttons. Very hard, and with my foot.

 

I'll try the different outlets, but i tried each monitor on each DVI out. i'll try diff outlets. the monitors power on tho, and im currently using them with my mac. so i doubt thats the solution.

 

Time to upgrade i guess and start from the ground up. i have a credit card with 0% interest on all purchases through october. i think ill give it a work out. lol

 

tigerdirect.com nom nom nom

There should be a button on the front of your monitor that says 'Power' or something similar.... I need you to push it.

 

*This response dedicated to Chris, Jon, Ben and anyone else that has answered these types of questions before*

 

Dear god, you don't know how many times I've had to say that.

Sounds like you have 4 possible culprits.

 

Video Card (which sounds good since you were able to use it in another computer)

Motherboard

Monitors (with both of them going out I really doubt the problem lies with them)

Powersupply (if your video card has a power port)

 

I would go ahead and check for updated Firmware for you video card and motherboard. Updated drivers couldn't hurt either. After that I would say its time to start getting one new piece of hardware at a time till something works and is stable.

 

Also don't limit yourself to Tigerdirect. Use Tigerdirect and Newegg to research the parts you want then check out Pricewatch.com for prices. You might have to go with a couple different vendors but you could save money in the long run.

Thanks Garnok!

 

The Geforce 9800 GT series does require power from the PSU. you may be on to something there. I think possibly i may pull a PSU from my sister's pc and throw it in mine to see what happens. it would make sense, i have horrible luck with PSU's i eat them for breakfast.

 

Before i was unable to use the PC, i did get updated video drivers. As far as firmware, havent touched any in ages. So that couldn't hurt.. but again, it's non functional.

 

I think as you suggested, i'm gonna go piece by piece. PSU first.

 

*as i think about it.. on the times the monitors would stay black on startup the GPU fan would be humming along non stop until i turned it off. the times it would take,.. the fan would hum and about 15 second, the monitor would get signal and the fan would cut. you may be right with the power supply issue.

 

however.. this looks tasty: NOM NOM mobo+CPU combo

im running a single XFX 9800 gt 512 mb. i have dual monitors screen spanned (cloned). i unplug one of the monitors, restart it a fwe times, and boom the one monitor fires up, and im good to go. plug the other one back in, reset the settings and im back to screen spanning. this goes on for 2-3 weeks. i have to go thru this scharade (sp?) every day. finally one day. no go.

 

you cloned your desktop? so you have the same thing on both screens? seems weird but im sure you have it set for what you need

 

i have mine set to extend my desktop, ANYWAYS about your question. i shut down my desktop every night, and one day i went to turn it on and the fans would spin up but i would get no video, similar to what happened to you. so i swapped out everything i could except the PSU and MoBo. deduced it down to those 2 parts being faulty and built a new PC, thanks kimball!

you cloned your desktop? so you have the same thing on both screens? seems weird but im sure you have it set for what you need

 

i have mine set to extend my desktop, ANYWAYS about your question. i shut down my desktop every night, and one day i went to turn it on and the fans would spin up but i would get no video, similar to what happened to you. so i swapped out everything i could except the PSU and MoBo. deduced it down to those 2 parts being faulty and built a new PC, thanks kimball!

 

well i went to best buy and bought a power supply, (30 day money back return policy - even open box) so i swapped it. still nothing.

 

i tihnk its the mobo, so im gonna s for that combo i linked earlier likely. quad core phenom. 3.0 ghz cores. black ediiton. (overclok ftw) and its got HDMI out too, which is sweet for me so i can play siht on my big ass LCD

 

ahh man.... money in, money out. hopefully this will be the last rig i build for a while. i think a 3.0 ghz quad core 64 bit cpu, and some 1ghz+ memory should do the trick for a while.

 

i really dont mind dropping a pretty penny at the moment, anyone have any favorites for high power components?

you cloned your desktop? so you have the same thing on both screens? seems weird but im sure you have it set for what you need

 

it's cloned as in the same background on both screens, but s technically a span. my left monitor looks just like anyone else's windows bar on the bottom.. icons and whatnot..

my right screens is an extension of the desktop but it is blank except for any open windows i drag over and any shortcuts. its a giant desktop area. ubt the left srceen looks unchanged from a single screen setup

 

so... to anyone still interested in my plight... The culprit is: MoBo.

 

went to best buy and bought the most expensive PSU they had just to test the old board, no go. ($230 for some 800 watt nonsense - 30 day open box return policy)

 

Got me a new mobo, with all the same components and it is firing up. KP = Happy again.