This is a Core2 Quad Intel Q8200 Processor PC with 8GB of RAM and 750 GB HDD + 1 TB back up drive running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit (it came with Vista 64 bit Home Premium, but upgraded to win 7 a while back).
It has always performed flawlessly, but last week there was no video at all when I turned it on. The monitor said "No Signal" on an otherwise black screen when powered up.
The HDD lights show activity and I can hear drives spinning, and the LEDs for the DVD and the wireless signal light up as well. Also, the Ethernet ports LEDs blink and show activity, as does the DVD drive if I put a disc in, but no video at all.
I have done the following to try to fix this:
1. I verified that the monitor I was using is working;
2. I still connected this PC to another working DVI monitor with no luck;
3. I connected this PC to a working VGA monitor with no luck;
4. I connected the VGA monitor to the onboard VGA port with no luck;
5.I tried booting up into BIOS, but again, no video so not sure if it is going to BIOS or not;
6. I read somewhere that the onboard VGA port will not work if a video card is present so I removed the exisitng video card and connected to the onboard VGA with no luck;
7. I purchased a replacement video card (it came with an MSI V240 500 MB PCIex16 card and got an XFX Radeon HD 5450 1GB PCI ex16 card); I installed the new card and tried it again with no luck;
8. I don't recall if this PC was set to beep on POST before as it always started quickly and with no problems. Now that I am looking for any beeps, I don't hear any but again, don't recall if it ever did beep before;
9. Seems like this is a hardware issue, but I also tried booting to a W7 64 Bit repair disc, but again, no video so don't know if it is working.
The last thing I recall seeing on it was a Windows Update that I think included an optional update for the video driver. I don't recall if I acdcpeted that one or not, but it seems to me that the drivers for the MSI card (nVidia, GE Force drivers I believe) would be irrelevant with a Radeon card using AMD drivers - that's why I opted to get the Radeon card).
I have not tested the original card, mainly because I don't have any PC with which to test it (I have a Core 2 Duo Pc with a PCI ex slot but not a PCI ex16. I don't know if this card would be backward compatible to that PC or not).
I vaguely recall disabling the onboard VGA in BIOS, but don't recall if that was with this PC or another one.
I am hoping that someone has a way to get the video back on so i can uninstall any recent drivers or updates that may have caused this (or so I can enable onboard VGA in BIOS).
I sure hope the MoBo is not messed up (it does power up the HDDs, the DVD drive and the fans, etc.) but with no video it's hard to know what's going on.
Help!!