[telgroc]

To start, I apologize if this is in the wrong section.

My desktop had been running a little sluggish and even crashed once due to overheating so I decided to do a thorough cleaning of it. The XPS 600 was designed to be easily upgradable and so it's easy to get into. I opened it up, and removed both DVD drives, the floppy disk reader, all 3 hard drives, both graphics cards (with SLI bridge), the sound card, and the TV tuner. I left the CPU alone since I didn't have the thermal paste to reapply once I removed the heatsync (I had myself electrically grounded throughout the whole process). I also didn't touch the RAM.

There was lots of dust, and 3 cans of compressed air later, everything looked good as new. I reinstalled everything, reattached all the cables exactly as they had been (I took notes on what attached where) and closed it up. When I went to turn on the computer, nothing came up on screen, at all. The diagnostic lights on the front were indicating a possible PCI card failure or possible hard drive failure. I've cycled through all the hard drives and PCI cards (removing them and restarting the computer) and nothing has worked. I can't get anything to load on screen. The operating system isn't loading either, since my keyboard is backlit and it only comes on after the OS has loaded. Any ideas?

System specs:
Dell XPS 600
2GB RAM
3.00GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2x250GB hard drives, RAID 0 configuration (bootable array, OS installed here)
1x500GB hard drive
2x512MB nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX (SLI enabled)
TV tuner
audio card

Edited by telgroc, 31 December 2008 - 12:26 AM.

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To start, I apologize if this is in the wrong section.

My desktop had been running a little sluggish and even crashed once due to overheating so I decided to do a thorough cleaning of it. The XPS 600 was designed to be easily upgradable and so it's easy to get into. I opened it up, and removed both DVD drives, the floppy disk reader, all 3 hard drives, both graphics cards (with SLI bridge), the sound card, and the TV tuner. I left the CPU alone since I didn't have the thermal paste to reapply once I removed the heatsync (I had myself electrically grounded throughout the whole process). I also didn't touch the RAM.

There was lots of dust, and 3 cans of compressed air later, everything looked good as new. I reinstalled everything, reattached all the cables exactly as they had been (I took notes on what attached where) and closed it up. When I went to turn on the computer, nothing came up on screen, at all. The diagnostic lights on the front were indicating a possible PCI card failure or possible hard drive failure. I've cycled through all the hard drives and PCI cards (removing them and restarting the computer) and nothing has worked. I can't get anything to load on screen. The operating system isn't loading either, since my keyboard is backlit and it only comes on after the OS has loaded. Any ideas?

System specs:
Dell XPS 600
2GB RAM
3.00GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2x250GB hard drives, RAID 0 configuration (bootable array, OS installed here)
1x500GB hard drive
2x512MB nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX (SLI enabled)
TV tuner
audio card

Before we come to and conclusions that you might have messed something up lets troublshoot.


Take out 1 of the video cards and only have 1 hooked up, take out the tv tuner, only have 1 ram stick installed, check all wiring to video card, harddrive and make sure they are snug and secure, also make sure the cpu heatsink is secure while you are in the case it does not hurt.

What I think you should try is check 1 video card by itself first then if you still have same problems switch it out for the other video card by itself.

possibly a video card issue or a combo issue with something else.

Also make sure you have the hard drives hooked up exactly like they were before to the same sata header onto the mobo.

[jrm20]

To start, I apologize if this is in the wrong section.

My desktop had been running a little sluggish and even crashed once due to overheating so I decided to do a thorough cleaning of it. The XPS 600 was designed to be easily upgradable and so it's easy to get into. I opened it up, and removed both DVD drives, the floppy disk reader, all 3 hard drives, both graphics cards (with SLI bridge), the sound card, and the TV tuner. I left the CPU alone since I didn't have the thermal paste to reapply once I removed the heatsync (I had myself electrically grounded throughout the whole process). I also didn't touch the RAM.

There was lots of dust, and 3 cans of compressed air later, everything looked good as new. I reinstalled everything, reattached all the cables exactly as they had been (I took notes on what attached where) and closed it up. When I went to turn on the computer, nothing came up on screen, at all. The diagnostic lights on the front were indicating a possible PCI card failure or possible hard drive failure. I've cycled through all the hard drives and PCI cards (removing them and restarting the computer) and nothing has worked. I can't get anything to load on screen. The operating system isn't loading either, since my keyboard is backlit and it only comes on after the OS has loaded. Any ideas?

System specs:
Dell XPS 600
2GB RAM
3.00GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2x250GB hard drives, RAID 0 configuration (bootable array, OS installed here)
1x500GB hard drive
2x512MB nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX (SLI enabled)
TV tuner
audio card

Before we come to and conclusions that you might have messed something up lets troublshoot.


Take out 1 of the video cards and only have 1 hooked up, take out the tv tuner, only have 1 ram stick installed, check all wiring to video card, harddrive and make sure they are snug and secure, also make sure the cpu heatsink is secure while you are in the case it does not hurt.

What I think you should try is check 1 video card by itself first then if you still have same problems switch it out for the other video card by itself.

possibly a video card issue or a combo issue with something else.

Also make sure you have the hard drives hooked up exactly like they were before to the same sata header onto the mobo.

[telgroc]

did everything suggested jrm and still nothing. i was almost positive that I had the right connections for the hard drives before, but i've cycled through all possible combinations of wiring configuration (took forever, haha), and still nothing.

[jrm20]

did everything suggested jrm and still nothing. i was almost positive that I had the right connections for the hard drives before, but i've cycled through all possible combinations of wiring configuration (took forever, haha), and still nothing.

Thats all that I can troubleshoot and come up with as it is very hard as is to do this over the net.

So I take it the system turns on like normal except you get no video display? Only the video display is the problem as we stand?

If the pc turns on like normal and all fans/lights come on as if the pc is working correctly but only the display on the monitor is not showing then we are getting somewhere.

Post back asap.

I hope you did not turn the canned air upside down during the cleaning process as water particles will come out.

Edited by jrm20, 02 January 2009 - 09:02 PM.

[telgroc]

everything powers on in the computer, all the fans start, the mobo light comes on, even the fans on the graphics card start spinning.

(the can stayed upright, no worries)

[jrm20]

everything powers on in the computer, all the fans start, the mobo light comes on, even the fans on the graphics card start spinning.

(the can stayed upright, no worries)

Alright then it is something related to the video cards / display somehow. Did you make sure and connect the power cables to both video cards? Try hooking up the power cables from different leads off of the power supply to the video cards. Maybe the video cards are not getting enough juice to power up properly. This means don't power the video cards from the same Rail/cable. Does not hurt to try.

Other things to try:

Try clearing the CMOS battery by taking out the battery OR you can unplug the pc from any power for about 1-2mins or so then plug back the power cable to the power supply.

Will not hurt to try another monitor if you have one in the house. More on this while I am talking about it, when you turn on the pc what color is the monitor light? Is it green or is it yellow?

If it still does not work take out Just the SOUND CARD from the pci slot as I have seen a faulty/bad sound card do weird issues and cause the pc not to post or display video.

You can also try taking out both video cards and finding a really old regular PCI video card if you have one stored in your closet somewhere and see if the video displays on the monitor.


Heat could of also been an issue as you said before it got too hot. Hopefully something is not damaged..

Edited by jrm20, 02 January 2009 - 10:07 PM.

[telgroc]

the monitor light is yellow, indicating sleep/power save mode as I'm sure you're fully aware. I'll try the other suggestions in the morning and edit this post with the results. In the meantime, thanks for the assistance.

[Troy]

Don't edit your post, it won't show up that more information has been added, so jrm20 will miss it.

Just add another one.

Troy

[telgroc]

ok, so i brought the computer to a friends' house and we plugged it into his monitor and his mouse/keyboard. we removed 1 of the 2 graphics cards, as well as the sound card and tv tuner. computer turned on, and we got stuff to come on screen. however the graphics were pretty glitchy and it only made it thru POST, no load of the OS. so we put everything back into the computer, tried again. Same result. we tried safe mode, it froze while loading the drivers. then we tried a normal boot and we got a screen saying the OS failed to load, to put in the install disc and do a repair of the OS. since I didn't have the disc with me, i waited til i got home to do that part, except now we're back to nothing showing up on the monitor. sooo for whatever reason, it's my monitor causing all the problems? i'll dig out an old monitor from my basement tomorrow to plug into the computer and see what happens

[telgroc]

ok, so i've figured out the problem. the reason why nothing was showing up on my monitor is because there's no support for DVI. I've plugged in a VGA cable and i can see stuff on my monitor. I'll be repairing the OS shortly and will repost if I run into further issues.

[jrm20]

ok, so i've figured out the problem. the reason why nothing was showing up on my monitor is because there's no support for DVI. I've plugged in a VGA cable and i can see stuff on my monitor. I'll be repairing the OS shortly and will repost if I run into further issues.

Sounds good man glad we helped you. I feel better now knowing we are getting somewhere LOL.