display issue with windows

[Torres]

i'm going to post this here...because i'm not getting any help on actual computer forums. hell one won't even let me register. so here goes nothing. it's gonna get lengthy lol

i built a PC a few years ago, and it ran flawlessly. had windows vista on it at first, then i upgraded to windows 7 eventually, which went just fine. i had windows 7 32 bit on it, and decided to change it to windows 64 bit, so i install it, come back just to find my screen blank. nothing is displayed on my monitor. it says 'no signal', even tho the PC is on.

i have a 3D card, so i thought to myself *duh, no drivers are installed* so i go to plug in the VGA cord to my motherboard, just to find that the original cord i had i got rid of somehow, some way. my motherboard is a 9 pin, and my monitor is a 15 pin port. so i buy a cord and adapter, and i still get nothing. i read somewhere that the way the adapter jumps certain wires can be wrong and nothing will display, so i trashed that

so i buy a new cord, with a gender changer adapter (i couldn't find a 9 pin female to 15 pin male cord ANYWHERE) and plug everything in and again, nothing. so now i decide to do more research and see what the issue could be.

i unplugged my graphics card, still no display. i took out my CMOS battery for thirty seconds, still nothing. unplugged the computer and held in the power button for about thirty seconds, still nothing. it powers on, and i got several POST beeps. 1 long, and 2 short (or 3 short, i forget. but i believe both pointed to some graphics or memory issue), so i unplugged my ram and tried just one, still got the beeps. so then i unplugged my dvd drive and the POST beeps stopped. but no POST beep at all, and still no display. so then i plugged it back in and expected the beeps to come back, but they didn't.

so everything is plugged in, no POST beeps, and still no display. i'm so lost right now. motherboard is Gigabyte P35-DS3R. it was working just fine until i installed 64 bit windows and sorry i didn't keep it brief lol. but wanted to list everything i've tried.

so...yeah there you have it. i know there's some smart people on this forum. hopefully i can get some help

Edited November 28, 2011 by Torres

[kickass audio]

try and disconnect all the extra stuff on your computer such as hard drives, dvd drives, video cards, pci cards, basically anything except for the motherboard, ram, and processor. See if it can power on at all. If it cant try to pull out your ram and plug it in one slot at a time. It could be that maybe one of your ram chips is defective but is highly unlikely. Do you have any speakers hooked to your computer at all? If the computer has the sound drivers installed and can boot into windows see if you can hear the windows loading sound. If you can then it is booting into windows like it should. If you happen to have another pc with the same connector as your graphics card try to connect it to the pc and see what it does.

Id try to remove all the un-necessary stuff on the tower and disconnect the cmos battery for over 2 minutes. I would then disconnect all power sources (cmos and wall power) and hold the power button in for 30 seconds to drain the power out. Then try to power the computer on without the cmos battery connected and see what it does. Also if you can test your power supply, it is a small chance that it is broken and not putting out enough power to run the graphics card.

edit: can you see the post on the screen at all? If you cant im thinking maybe something on the board died and you need a new mobo.

Edited November 28, 2011 by kickass audio

[Sheena]

"i upgraded to windows 7 eventually, which went just fine. i had windows 7 32 bit on it, and decided to change it to windows 64 bit"

does the computer even POST at the bios? if no, hardware failure.

if it does post and loads windows, but stops displaying, its driver failure.

also for future reference, NEVER "upgrade" your os to another, ALWAYS do a clean install. and definitely never go from 32 to 64 bit, or vise versea because everything you installed hardware wise needs to be reinstalled, every single driver and possibly several programs.

The 9 pin and 15 pin you are talking about are called VGA and DVI in case you were curious.

EDIT: 9 pin? >.> i just counted the pins on a extra VGA cord laying around and there is 15.. and there is only 3 display adapters ive ever heard of (vga, dvi, hdmi) and dvi is like 24 on one side, then 4 on the other that surround a flat bar..

so what is 9 pin? pics please?

Edited November 28, 2011 by Sheena

[Torres]

it was actually a clean install. i put everything i wanted on an external hard drive so i could start fresh, then just transfer things over. i always read that you could go from 32 to 64, but not 64 to 32 which is why i went ahead and did it. and it's not a DVI, it's a VGA. just 2 different types

the 9 pin that comes out of the motherboard looks like this piece on the right:

and the 15 pin piece that goes into the monitor looks like this:

i haven't messed with it yet today, but yesterday at POST it would beep several times and continue to turn on (lights and fans and such). i unplugged the DVD drive and the POST went away completely. so i plugged it back in and the POST still did not return. so last i messed with it, there was no POST at all, but things would continue to turn on

and i can't see anything on the screen. the monitor says 'no signal' the whole time. i'll try to remove all the components and such and see what that does. i have a sound card, but i should probably try my speakers in the motherboard since there's no drivers installed for the sound card.

i'll take out the CMOS battery again for a bit longer too. i'll probably go ahead and replace it, it's a few years old now. and thanks for reading through all that and replying. i appreciate the help

[kickass audio]

The connector on the right is a serial cable that is not for video. Its for old school printers and networking equipment.

[Sheena]

holy shitt, old school VGA! and that VGA cord you have will work, there is no such thing as 9 pin adapter to 15, i would order up a new VGA cable if you really cared, one with 15 on each end. (just any new cord really, they dont make 9 pin anymore)

sounds like hardware failure, POSSIBLY (not accusing you of anything) something is wired wrong if you undid any of the connections.

i have a Gigabyte mobo, and one beep = post success then proceed to send signal to the monitor/keyboard/mouse/usb.

you need to count the beeps and go find the beep codes on google OR the gigabyte website that will tell you exactly whats wrong.

or if your motherboard has them, the LED light codes on the mobo itself, all lights engaged = complete hardware success, proceed to power peripherals.

the beeps and the light codes should be in your gigabyte manual, (i believe).

as kickass audio said, there is a great chance that one of the caps blew on the mobo causing a short creating the power test to fail.

EDIT: serial cable... wow lol.. yes, please do purchase a new VGA cable and try that solution first. serial cable is before my time, is why i didnt notice it, but yes kickass audio is correct again, that is a male serial cable

Edited November 28, 2011 by Sheena

[kickass audio]

The only reason i knew is because i use that port all the time in my CCNA class to program routers and switches and my o-scope has the same db-9 connection on it. I was around for the good old ms-dos days and im only 20. lol

[Sheena]

lol im only 20 too , i didnt get into computers till i was like 14 though, and all of the many jobs i have ran i have never had to jack with a serial cable, or lpt1 printer. guess i have been lucky.

and my school didnt have a ccna class! and my college does not either! makes me mad that im missing out.

[Torres]

i do have a double 15 pin VGA as well. but wtf?? it's been forever since i've needed to use my mobo for display, but i could have sworn i used that for video. the only other ports i have are 4 USB ports, the green/purple old ass ports for the keyboard and mouse, and a long ass pink port that looks like it's for a printer. the blue port (the 9 pin) has this on it |o|o| then what looks to be a picture of a monitor. and i just tried to turn it on again, and no POST. i think i'm going to take the CMOS battery out and run to the store to replace it

[Torres]

yeah thanks for making me feel old btw lol