Dell PC no Graphics Output

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

I've been tasked with sorting out my bosses PC. Its about 3 years old, has had no problems and has not been overclocked. Its a Dell Serial No 4JP4R0J running Win 2K Pro, P4 2.4Ghz I think (but as I can't view the moniter I cannot check) with 512Mb DDR Ram.

He turned it on & there was no image on screen. I swapped screens still nothing. There are no Mobo Bleeps on boot and the hard drive makes noises like its reading data. Also there are no signs of burning etc

As my boss wants his PC back am going to remove hard drive and put in similar machine to see if he can get his programs back.


Any suggestions how to find out whats wrong

thanks for your help

Kev

[Kev Sharratt]

Have removed the hard drive & installed in the spare PC, it booted up fine so the boss is now happy.

Just need to sort out whats wrong with the spare now

Kev

[Kev Sharratt]

Would you believe it...

I took the good HD, noticed the jumper was on cable select, changed it to master, put it in the fauly machine and it booted up with no probs. not got a clue what was wrong but its working now

Kev

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi went back to the Hard Drive from the faulty machine and checked the jumpers. They were also set to cable select so I changed it too master and the PC 'could not find primary drive' F1 to continue, F2 to setup.

What should the jumper be set too and should I change it to master & choose F2 setup.

Thanks for the advice

Kev

[tantone]

Dell's computers always ship set as cable select. That jumper setting uses the position of the drive on the cable to determine whether it's master or slave. The center connector is the slave and the outward connector is the master.

I suggest leaving it at cable select and attaching the drive to the outward connector on the IDE cable.

Is the problem PC using integrated video or is it a separate video card?

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

Its has integrated video, if it had not come back to life I was going to 'borrow' a graphics card from somewhere to try in the AGP slot because I was suspicious of the onboard graphics

Kev

[tantone]

Download the Dell diagnostic disks from their site and run those on the afflicted PC. After over 3 years, you're probably out of warranty, so if the integrated video is dead, then you're best bet is to use an add-on card.

[Kev Sharratt]

Thanks I'll do that

Kev