[wre2277]

I was looking at the display adapter section of the device manager, and noticed there were two things there. The first was something like "Intel chipset" blah blah some numbers and things i can't remember. The second was "Radeon 9000 Family". Now, this is our old family computer and we just got a new one, so i had wanted to use this one myself. The Radeon was disabled, so I enabled it and restarted the computer. No problems there. After the computer restarted, it didn't recognize the Radeon 9000, which was not too big of a deal, so i disabled the "intel chipset" thing and kept the Radeon enabled to see if that would do anything, and restarted.

Now, the computer would start, go past the Windows Home edition loading screen, but then would proceed no further. The monitor was all black. It sounded like the computer was working, but obviously i couldn't do anything more. So i turned the computer off and then back on. Before the Windows screen came up i hit F2 to go to the setup and this is where i did something really stupid. I changed the video setting from "Onboard" to "Auto". Now when i turn on the computer, the monitor doesn't even receive a feed from the computer, it just changes from one color to the next every few seconds (which is what it does when the computer is off but the monitor is on). so now when i turn the computer on, i can't do anything because there's no screen. please help! sorry for the long post but i had to explain everything.

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Hello,
Are you comfortable with opening up your computer?
Power down your PC.
Unplug your computer!!!
Find the 3-pin jumper near the battery, typically labeled "clear cmos" or "reset bios".
Remove the jumper from the default position (typically connecting the 1st and 2nd pins).
Replace the jumper to connect the 2nd and 3rd pins.
Push the power button on the front of your PC once.
Wait a minute.
Return the jumper to its default position, connecting the 1st and 2nd pins.
Plug the computer in.
Power on your PC with its front power button.



Or Unplug the computer!!!
Remove the CMOS battery. This should be a regular 3.3V, round, flat watch battery.
Wait at least 5 minutes.
Reinsert the CMOS battery.
Plug the computer in.
Power on your PC with its front power button.

Edited by hfcg, 20 August 2008 - 06:30 PM.

[hfcg]

Hello,
Are you comfortable with opening up your computer?
Power down your PC.
Unplug your computer!!!
Find the 3-pin jumper near the battery, typically labeled "clear cmos" or "reset bios".
Remove the jumper from the default position (typically connecting the 1st and 2nd pins).
Replace the jumper to connect the 2nd and 3rd pins.
Push the power button on the front of your PC once.
Wait a minute.
Return the jumper to its default position, connecting the 1st and 2nd pins.
Plug the computer in.
Power on your PC with its front power button.



Or Unplug the computer!!!
Remove the CMOS battery. This should be a regular 3.3V, round, flat watch battery.
Wait at least 5 minutes.
Reinsert the CMOS battery.
Plug the computer in.
Power on your PC with its front power button.

Edited by hfcg, 20 August 2008 - 06:30 PM.

[wre2277]

OK i tried both of those and nothing seemed to happen. The computer beeps twice a few seconds after i turn it on however. Maybe i'm doing something wrong? Also, i tried plugging in the monitor cable into the Radeon's slot instead of the motherboard's slot, but that hasn't done anything.

[Artellos]

I hope you don't mind me dropping in hfcg.
Just dropping in my thoughts.

I think the user didn't change anything in his BIOS. I think it's a windows setting that can be changed from safe mode as safe mode doesn't use any video drivers it can safely boot up and you can change the setting there.

Just some thoughts for hcfg as I'm not 100% sure myself.

Regards,
Olrik

[wre2277]

i can't even get to that point though. when i turn the computer on, nothing shows up on the monitor. all the parts seem to be running, i.e. the fans are going and i can open the CD tray, but nothing is on the screen so i can't even get past just turning the computer on. is there a way to take some parts out and put them back in to reset the hardware or something? because messing with the software isn't even an option at this point.

[hfcg]

Artellos I always welcome advice, and help. I am far from having all of the answers to an issue!
wre2277 After you unplug the computer, take the side off of the case. Than follow the directions in post #2 (my first post)
The idea is to reset the CMOS (BIOS) to undo the change that you made.

[hfcg]

Just to let you know, what you did was to set the BIOS so that it is not using your on board video card.
You should be able to put another video card in and get a display.
I would say that the Radeon 9000 Family video card is defective.
(you could try pluging your monitor in to that output and see if it works.)

[wre2277]

OK what i did was move the jumper from the 1st and 2nd pins to the 2nd and 3rd pins. then i just press the power button on the computer, even though it is off and unplugged. then switch it back to the 1st and 2nd. that didn't seem to do anything.

and you could be correct about the Radeon being fried, i'm not sure about the history of the computer as of about 9 months ago. the fan on the Radeon turns on so it's definitely getting power. I'm going to try plugging in the monitor to a different computer to see if that isn't the problem.