Computer Monitor Went Berzerk / PC Won't Boot?

Question

The other day, I was operating my PC as usual when I heard two "bloop, bloop" sounds. About 45 mins. after that, the monitor went berserk and had all these colors going across it horizontally. Nothing worked so I had to hard reboot it. It took it a li'l longer to boot up, but it eventually did.

About 30 mins. after that, the monitor went berserk again with the color thing. On the next hard reboot, the PC wouldn't boot. I tried to use Winternals & Sys-Internals Trinity and the monitor did the berserk thing again while reading the disks.

Now I get "nothing" when I boot the PC. The monitor stays completely blank, in standby mode. I'm not getting any beeps at all. Only the drive lights work for a few seconds, then the CPU light stays on and doesn't blink at all. When I press the I/O button for 4 secs. to turn off the PC, I get the "monitor going to sleep" message.

What's up? System is HP, Intel P4, XP Home, 512 RAM, 200 GB hard drive.

Answer 1

Could be the monitor, the video adapter or the hard drive.

If it's the:

-monitor, a different monitor should help.  Get any old VGA CRT monitor from a local garage sale, or recycle place.  Any place that takes old monitors should be able to give you one that works - or ask your workplace to loan you one or sell you one.  They really come in handy for things like this.

- video adapter, check to see if it's onboard video or a video card - if it's a card, then your monitor should be connected to it through one of a row of slots at the back of the PC.  If it's onboard, then the monitor port should be part of the ports panel which includes your keyboard connection, etc.  If you have both, then you're in luck.  Just disconnect the video card, and reconnect your monitor to the onboard video port instead, and try to boot.  Otherwise you'll have to get a new video card to test with.  That's not so easy, so try the next thing first in that case.  

-hard drive, you'll need something like Knoppix or BART (google these) and see if when you boot from the CD, the hard drive is recognized.  If so, then the hard drive is not the problem, and you'll have to go back to the video card test.  If the hard drive isn't recognized, then it probably died and you'll have to buy a new one, reinstall Windows on it, etc.  

I strongly suspect it's the video card, based on your description, so check out what type it is.  Onboard video is not fixable if it breaks.  You have to either get a video card to replace it, or replace the motherboard.  A video card is removable if you also have onboard video (but your graphics will be of lower quality until you replace the card).  

Desktop PC video cards come in several types depending on the motherboard connector used.  AGP, PCI, and PCIe. Check your PC documentation on hp.com to find out which one, or look inside if you know what to look for.  You can get images of these connectors from google images or yahoo images search.  

It could also be the video mode or the video drivers, so try running in safe mode (F8 during startup), and reinstall your drivers if you suspect that they were changed recently.  You can download the drivers for a video adapter that came with your PC from hp.com.

HP's website will also tell you if your PC is still in warranty or not.  If it is, don't wait, use the warranty before it runs out.  It will be the cheapest and easiest fix.  But if you send them your PC, get the data off it first using Knoppix or BART if you can.  

Hope it works out!