No video output

I've searched the forum but haven't seen anything that's close to the problem I'm dealing with at the moment so I figured it was time to ask.

I have no video output from the pc. There is a graphics card and on-board video and neither of them work. The computer turns on, or rather there is power as the fans run and I can "feel" the harddrive running, however there are no beeps and I can't hold the power button to turn it off, I have to switch it off on the PSU.
I have tried the monitor with a different computer so I know that's not what it is, I've pulled everything out and reseated it, unplugged and re-plugged all cords, quadruple checked to make sure everything is plugged in and correctly. Still no video. I've used different video cords, pulled the graphics card out and just used the on-board video, left it in and tried the on-board, no video.

I don't have another or different video card to try and at this point I can't afford to buy another just to try it if I ultimately will have to replace something else. I'm pretty sure it's not the video card itself and I'm getting more confident that it's the motherboard but I wanted some "expert" advice before I spend the money for a new motherboard.

I'm not computer stupid by any means, but I'm far from an expert and I've never run across this problem before.

I can't see if the harddrive is actually booting up since the monitor won't come out of standby with this computer. It will with a different computer though. I can't swap the graphics cards from the 2 PC's because they are completely different (I tried though LOL).

So, is there something that I'm missing? Any suggestions on how to tell if it really is the motherboard? I have had the speakers plugged in and there is no sound out of them. I can't use the front audio plugins because they quit working for some reason before this video issue started and I hadn't had a chance to check it out.

This is the motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Video card:
SAPPHIRE 100225L Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit GDDR4 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Processor:
AMD Athlon X2 4450e Brisbane 2.3GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor

And it's running WinXP
no overclocking

This computer was working just fine, although we did now and then have an issue with the video. While the computer was running, the video would just quit "out putting" and the monitor would go to standby mode. We would have to restart the computer and it would work fine again for a while. This quit happening after I reseated the graphics card and updated the driver until now.

 

That motherboard doesn't have an onboard speaker listed, so make sure that POST errors are causing beeps at all. To do that, just pull out all of the RAM. Without RAM you get a POST error, and there should be a series of beeps, if there isn't, you don't have a onboard speaker, and may need to connect one.

Also try resetting your BIOS. If you go to page 22 in this PDF: http://america.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ma78gm-s2h_e.pdf and short out the CLR_CMOS pins labeled there. That may help at least somewhat, if a bios setting caused this.

 

Sounds like a motherboard issue, possibly from a short circuit on the mainboard somewhere. I would say try resetting the bios, but if you've never messed with it, that shouldn't be the problem. If the onboard card isn't working either, sounds a lot like the motherboard. The only reason I could see onboard maybe not working is if, in the bios, the motherboard's onboard is set to "Disabled". Other than that, onboard is the last line of defense against a black screen video card ;-)

Anyways, last hurrah would be to take out the lithium battery on the board, wait 5 seconds, put it back and try booting. KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED UNLESS YOU ARE GOING TO TRASH THE BOARD AND GET A NEW ONE ANYWAYS. This resets EVERYTHING in the bios, like the internal clock, peripherals, boot device order, voltages, etc. Only use this if it's the last thing you want to try before dumping the board.

 

I didn't do anything in the BIOS prior to this happening and I don't think that I had the onboard video set to disabled, although I could be wrong on that but right now I'll never know because I can't see it. LOL

I pulled out the RAM and restarted and didn't hear any beeps.

Could this also be a harddrive problem as in the harddrive completely crashed?

 

Not likely. Hard drives are posted AFTER the bios loads. If you boot the computer and the monitor NEVER comes on, that's an indication that the motherboard/bios(cmos) has either gone bad or needs replacement. In the case of a bad board, obviously replacing it due to faulty onboard issues is much more cost-effective than fixing it.

You see, the BIOS is loaded from the board, itself, at POST time. You know what I'm talking about if you've ever seen a manufacturer logo or the "Award BIOS" load screen, which lists your RAM, loaded internal drives and, to a lesser extent, the options to F2/DEL/F8/etc for boot options. This is the BIOS posting and has absolutely nothing to do with anything else. If the board is bad the bios won't boot. The strange thing here is the fact that the onboard video won't work and neither will an added card. This is very strange, because a peripheral card should load even if the onboard is damaged. Now, it is possible that the onboard card has shorted out the boards ability to communicate with video at all, but that is also VERY highly unlikely. The very last line of defense is to keep only 1 RAM stick in, unplug ALL devices (hard drive, CD/DVD drives, etc) that connect to the board, everything that boots from the POST. If you disconnect all drives, use ONLY onboard video and the problem still persists, I'd say you have a major issue with your board.

 

This is actually the next thing I would try since you are comfortable working inside the PC. It helps eliminate the possibility that a bad device is halting boot.

 

I finally got a chance to unplug absolutely everything but 1 stick of RAM, including like the HDD access light, the front USB and audio etc and tried with the onboard video, nada.
Sooo, I guess this is good indication that something is wrong with the board and I will have to replace it. I really liked that motherboard too but it's the first time I've used that brand and I'm not completely impressed with it's short life span.

 

Try resetting the CMOS by unplugging the PC and taking out the battery. Or unplug and use the clear CMOS jumper.

Either option just resets things to the defaults. Use the last known good monitor that worked on the PC but make sure it is attached to the onboard connection.

 

Very recently I had a very similar issue after a housekeeping run, with the system fans (case, cpu, video, etc) all booting up but it would not go into the "boot cycle" (fans slowing back down and going through the post process). At times it would boot up and go through the POST cycle but it was being very intermittent.

One comment you mention is off great interest that you lost the front panel audio jacks because they quit working.

I isolated my problem by removing the front panel and found that a wire (in my case the speaker wire) had become loose and was shorting on the front chassis causing a system short and not allowing a boot. I secured the wire again and was able to get the system to POST like it should. You could try either to remove the front panel and make sure none of these wires are floating around or exposed.

 

I haven't had a chance to do anything else with it yet but I'm hoping to find some time tomorrow. I'll try taking off the front and if I don't find anything there I'll try resetting the CMOS.

 

I should add that I found the lose wire after hardware isolation testing, i.e. removing all RAM to try and force a BIOS error beep, removing Video Card for same purpose, etc. It turned out the wire was my front speaker and thus I couldn't hear a BIOS beep anyway. Worse case scenario would be to remove the whole system from the case and build it on a box with bare minimal parts connected and add each part sequentially until you have all parts added. You would start with just the CPU + HS, 1 Ram stick and Video.