black monitor

I am using a Gateway Pent 4, 256mb, win98 machine. I booted up one day and the monitor remained black except for the flashing red-blue warning to make sure all cables are properly connected. I've switched the video card into another similar machine, and it works, so I know that's it's not the video card. I even swaaped the hard drive from the same similar machine to see if it had to do with the operating sysytem, but no avail. Anyone know of any new avenues to approach? Many thanks!

Did you try switching the monitor to another system? If it does the same thing, I would say its dead.

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Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Did you try switching the monitor to another system? If it does the same thing, I would say its dead.

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I have tried four other working monitors on the system, and get the same results as with the original monitor. At first, i took the monitor to another working machine, and the monitor worked, that's what caused me to believe it was the video card. Thanks for the response.

Oooo .. this one is confus-ing !

So the monitor works (tested elsewhere as 'ok')
The video card works (tested elsewhere as 'ok')
We put a 'known working good' drive to it & no change ..

Does it go 'beep' (post) ?

Because now we seem to be down to motherboard, chip, memory or psu, now if it were me I'd have enough 'stuff' to test each bit seperately (that's the only real practical method at this point) .. because it pressumably worked before & of course now it don't ..

My 'best guess' is leaky caps (on the motherboard, so that's 'failed') .. but the symptoms are a little 'sketchy' .. can you hear the hard drive spin up ? are the case & cpu fans running ?

Thanks for your response. Yes, to fans running and hard drive spinning up. I checked the caps and their fine. Gateway did have problems with previous models with leaky caps. My last resort is to change the cmos battery.

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

Oooo .. this one is confus-ing !

So the monitor works (tested elsewhere as 'ok')
The video card works (tested elsewhere as 'ok')
We put a 'known working good' drive to it & no change ..

Does it go 'beep' (post) ?

Because now we seem to be down to motherboard, chip, memory or psu, now if it were me I'd have enough 'stuff' to test each bit seperately (that's the only real practical method at this point) .. because it pressumably worked before & of course now it don't ..

My 'best guess' is leaky caps (on the motherboard, so that's 'failed') .. but the symptoms are a little 'sketchy' .. can you hear the hard drive spin up ? are the case & cpu fans running ?

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Is it an AGp or PCI card? Have you moved the card to another slot? Since the PCI slots are "shared" make sure you move it to a different pair (Or triplet)..

You didn't say if it is posting correctly. If the machine is plugged in the CMOS battery shouldn't affect the operation of the video card, the most I've seen it do is force you into the BIOS on boot to "accept the changes".

It is an AGp card. Many thanks for your response.

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Originally Posted by Bigtimbre

Is it an AGp or PCI card? Have you moved the card to another slot? Since the PCI slots are "shared" make sure you move it to a different pair (Or triplet)..

You didn't say if it is posting correctly. If the machine is plugged in the CMOS battery shouldn't affect the operation of the video card, the most I've seen it do is force you into the BIOS on boot to "accept the changes".

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Check for pins slightly bent, dust in the vga port, wiggle the cable to the monitor. Sometimes they just dont quite make right.