[KirstinK]

I know this has been ask a few dozen times, and I looked through the solutions, tried most of them.

I still need help.

My mother has a computer with Windows 2000 XP, and a AG Neovo flatscreen monitor, and onboard video card (at least I'm assuming that since there is no card attached).

Things were fine. Now, the computer starts up, one short beep, the windows loading grafic appears, then the screen goes black ("No Singnal")

I have tried the following:

Disconect all cords and reconnect.
Make sure adaquate power/electric supply is available.
The video card is on board, I did not disconnect. I'm not willing to remove motherboard and replace (that sounds too drastic).
Boot into safe mode using F8

Safe mode did work, I was able to get to the desk top. The computer guy who sold me the computer talked me through the next few steps. I did the RUN, msconfig, restart process. Problem still continues.

In safe mode I also tried to reset computer setting to a date one month prio to the occurance of this problem.

That didn't help.

The man who sold me the computer says it's a software problem. If it was something else I wouldn't have made it to the safemode desktop. He said to re-install the software and all will be well.

I know nothing about computers. Well, I know a little now from reading things on this site, but what I know isn't enough.

Now the questions:
It was mentioned to check if fans were working properly. I have not done this yet. While doing the other things I noticed the back of the box did get quite warm. To check the fans, do I just start the computer with one side of the box open so I can see the fan working? Is it safe to run the computer with the side of the box off?

Question two: Is this really a software problem?

Question three: If I do need to reinstall the software, exactly what does that mean? Do I use the recovery disk, or do I just put the Windows disk in, start the computer and hope everything runs smoothly. If I try one of those things and it doesn't work, will I lose my operating system? Do I enter into safe mode? I'm totally lost on this part.

Okay, that is just about everything I know at this point. Any suggestions? Should I/how do I check the fans. What about the whole software reloading thing?

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Yes, it's fine to run the computer with the side off. You want to be sure not to touch anything inside while it is running! And make sure you unplug the computer and ground yourself before doing anything inside. However, it does sound more like a software problem. Is this a brand name computer? Or did somebody build it? Because brand name computers usually don't come with a full version of Windows. They come with a restore disk that has all the programs that are on the computer when you buy them. Then if you do a restore it wipes your system and puts all the things that were there when you bought it back. So you lose anything that you added to the hard drive. Any music, videos or documents would be gone. What did you change under msconfig? Also, how long did you wait after the screen went blank to make sure Windows wasn't going to come up?

[Billre1967]

Yes, it's fine to run the computer with the side off. You want to be sure not to touch anything inside while it is running! And make sure you unplug the computer and ground yourself before doing anything inside. However, it does sound more like a software problem. Is this a brand name computer? Or did somebody build it? Because brand name computers usually don't come with a full version of Windows. They come with a restore disk that has all the programs that are on the computer when you buy them. Then if you do a restore it wipes your system and puts all the things that were there when you bought it back. So you lose anything that you added to the hard drive. Any music, videos or documents would be gone. What did you change under msconfig? Also, how long did you wait after the screen went blank to make sure Windows wasn't going to come up?

[KirstinK]

We got the computer at a small shop. It's a mix and match kind of deal. I did look and I have no restore disk, only the gold colored ms windows xp home edition disk. I'm asuming that's the disk I need to use.

I've used a restore disk that came with my lap top before (and lost all my old stuff ofcourse). But I've never used the the windows xp on my mom's computer.

Is there any special order I should do things.

When I used the restore I had to put the disk in before turning on my lap top.

Is it the same way (disk first then computer on) when using the windows xp on the computer?

Are there any problems I should watch out for?

I will check the fans. I don't think that has anything to do with the no signal problem. But I may have accidentally knocked the fan connection out of place when I was looking around in there. So, I'll check on that too.

As for the msconfig: the guy walked me through it. I just went to run. Then typed msconfig. Then clicked okay and restarted the computer. Those where the steps he gave me.

As for the restart, I probably only waited about 2-3 minutes. When I did the restore to previous settings, I gave it a good ten minutes.

Thanks for the help.

Edited by KirstinK, 18 November 2005 - 08:17 PM.

[Billre1967]

What you did under msconfig wouldn't have changed anything. Msconfig has configuration settings. Including what starts up with your computer. You can go back into safe mode and get into msconfig. There's an option to not load anything on startup. Probably under the Startup tab. Click it so that nothing will laod at startup and try booting into normal mode. you can also try this while in safe mode. Type run hit enter and then type sfc /scannow. This will look for corrupted or missing files and replace them.

As far as the WinXP cd. You would put it in and then start the computer. It should detect it and give you some choices.

Good luck!