Newbie here! need help with video card/display issue

[comp1nub]

Hi guys I'm new to the computer world so please excuse my ignorance. I've recently dug up my old family computer and I'm trying to fix it and get it running. It has am M805Lr mother board and I just installed 512mb of RAM. I recently purchased a 17" LCD ENVISION monitor. When I powered up the machine the lights came on in the front but the monitor showed "no signal". I then checked the monitor to the new computer I have and that one works on that computer. I also swapped 2 other monitors to this old computer and none of them showed a signal. The monitor has a 15pin VGA cable and is connected properly. I'm at a loss. Any info would be great.

Thanks.

 

[micker377]

Are there any beeps coming from the "bad" computer? The first thing I would do is to pull the video card from the computer, polish the contacts (carefully), and plug the card back in. If this doesn't help, unplug all the drives and peripherals. You want the CPU, memory (one stick), and video card. See if you can get into the BIOS setup. When you tried the other monitors, were they LCD, or CRT? You want to use a CRT style for testing.

 

[comp1nub]

Excuse my ignorance but I'm going to assume that a CRT monitor is an older monitor right. As far as unplugging all the drives am I polishing them like the video card? What do I use to polish them? Sorry for the questions I don't anything about these machines and I really want to learn. I believe when I tried using the other monitors one was an LCD and I also used the old monitor which is about 8 years old. Also I did not hear any beeps when I turned the machine on. All I here is the fan running.

 

[Nelviticus]

CRT monitors are the old-style big fat ones. I'm not sure why CRT ones are better for testing than LCD but I'm sure Micker can elaborate!

You should hear a single short beep from the old PC when it starts up - if not, there's probably something wrong with it. This could be because a component or cable is loose, which is why Micker suggested unplugging (and re-plugging) them all. Be careful though - make sure you earth yourself first as static electricity can easily damage computer parts. I normally make sure I'm not wearing nylon and touch the unpainted metal parts of a radiator to discharge static before I open up my PC.

To polish the contacts I would use something metal and abrasive like a scouring pad (not one with soap!), but be VERY careful. You don't want to remove any of the gold plating, you just want to remove any corrosion. You may not need to do this - unplugging and re-seating all the components and cables may be enough.

Note - do NOT remove the CPU, its heatsink or cooler as you might need special thermal paste when you put it back.

You say you installed 512MB RAM - is this because it wasn't working before? You could try going back to the old memory to see whether that works.

Nelviticus