BIOS displays; monitor goes black when booting anything; PC cycle boots

This is for a client's computer.

TL;DR: Computer has trojan, computer reformatted, BIOS displays picture, Windows doesn't. Cycle boots. Boot utilities crash.

Here is the computer.

This is the only post I could find with similar symptoms, but I don't need help backing up-- it's failing after the reinstallation of Windows.

I noticed multiple popup windows caused by a program “desote.exe” with multiple instances, in addition to “a.exe” and “b.exe” each in single instances. I discovered that the first program is most commonly introduced into a machine by software called Windows Doctor PC, a fake anti-virus program/trojan virus. It blacklisted any and all diagnostic programs, such as Malwarebytes or HijackThis!, from installing or running.


I backed up everything by flash drive and by hooking up the HDD externally to one of my machines and ran a thorough virus scan, in the event that the hard drive and Windows installation could still be recovered. The scan removed 26 infected objects, including “a” and “b.exe” mentioned above. Unfortunately, I think the scan needed to quarantine one or more necessary system files, so the system failed to boot entirely—there was no picture following the BIOS boot screens.

After the hard drive was replaced, I reformatted the hard drive using the Windows disc provided and reinstalled (stupid move in retrospect, since I knew that format didn't wipe the MBR). No problems were evident; a picture was displayed throughout Windows setup and BIOS, ruling out video problems (or so I though).

Once install completed, the former installation of Windows remained in the boot selection screen, indicating to me that the master boot record was not wiped completely clean. I would have just fixed this from within Windows, but Windows still would not display a picture during its boot-up or anytime thereafter. This only affected Windows, not the BIOS. BIOS settings reflect that the AGP slot is being used for primary video.

I ran a zero-fill erasure with dban overnight, after which I promptly installed Windows. The picture continues to disappear as soon as Windows or any bootup utility begins to do its thing. It also now cycle boots. :mad

I tried to test the HDD, but Seatools crashes to no display, just like Windows, when its DOS kernel is loaded.

I wasn't sure whether to post this in hardware or software, but any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

 

Edit: The computer POSTs successfully. I also removed the CMOS battery, cleared the capacitors, and moved the jumper temporarily to clear CMOS further. It still goes blank when anything outside of BIOS tries to boot up.

 

Maybe this will help? The graphics is onboard on this PC?

 

Thanks for responding. Those are the POST lights. The BIOS POSTs successfully. The motherboard appears to have onboard graphics, but it goes through the AGP card. I tried connecting it to the onboard DSUB connection, but the monitor enters sleep mode, whereas it's just blank when connected to the video card.

 

You should be able to boot to the onboard graphics by changing the setting in the BIOS, you may have to pull the AGP card as well.

 

The Seagate problem confuses me. Otherwise, I would say because you can see BIOS screens you know the monitor and VGA video drivers work. My guess would be that Windows is not installing the correct driver for your video card. That PC shipped with XP is that the OS you are installing? Have you tried starting in Safe Mode(hitting F8 immediately after POST)?

It looks like that PC shipped with just onboard video. Maybe, set BIOS to use the onboard video, remove the AGP card and reinstall windows. If that works you can always just plug in the video card and install drivers later.

 

satrow: That'll be my next step, thanks.

sach2: It confused me, too. One would think that if it can display BIOS, it can display the bootable DOS Seatools. I'll try pulling the AGP card and setting Video to "Auto" (the only two options are that and "AGP"), but I doubt that'll fix the cycle booting. That's a good guess about Windows not installing the correct driver, albeit bizarre since it's the original Dell OS install disc that came with the tower.

The PC shipped with a video card and a mobo with onboard video.

I tried Safe Mode before flattening the drive, but haven't yet tried it with the fresh install.

 

One thing about the monitor. Is it CRT or flat panel? Are you using an adapter to connect it to the DSUB/VGA connector? I'm wondering if you have a CRT monitor to try.

 

Nope, no CRtubes at my disposal. It's my old Samsung 17" 710N.

Video card has both DSUB and DVI connections. The monitor has only DSUB (although I do have another monitor with DVI).

 

If the monitor has DSUB that is fine. I've just seen a couple of threads where adapters caused problems. So a DSUB monitor connected to a DSUB connector is fine. Going from a DVI monitor to a DSUB connector using an adapter might very rarely have been a problem and a simple thing to check. I'm just trying to reason out why the seagate iso wouldn't load properly.

Pulling the graphics card and setting BIOS to auto is probably the next step as satrow suggested. The short cycling might be a problem with Windows detecting the onboard video but you could check the using the Seatools iso.

 

Windows was never able to finish installing, so I can't boot into safe mode. XP installs by copying all the files needed for setup, restarts, then boots from those setup files on the hard drive to finish. That's when it installs from the GUI and asks for the keyboard language, etc. I've only seen that part once. Since then, the boot infinitely loops before any GUI can be started.

I tried pulling all the PCI cards and switching to onboard video. Same issues. Video is not the problem. The HDD is noisy as hell (one of those old clicking and chirping HDDs where you can hear every bit of activity), but I don't think that's the issue since CD boots fail the same way as HDD boots.

What's bizarre is that this only started when I took the tower to my work area. Windows was booting at the customer's house. It had a virus, but still, it booted. As soon as I removed the hard drive, backed up everything, did a virus scan, and replaced it, nothing has worked. You'd think that after I completely erase the thing and reinstall Windows that anything the virus scan did would be fixed, but it's not the case.

I'm going to try booting from an Ubuntu disc next. After that, I'll try swapping out the memory.

Is there any boottime program to check the core temps w/o an OS if BIOS won't supply the information?

 

Have you got as far as formatting in the installation process since using DBAN? If not maybe you should try and format the HD on another machine.

 

That's the problem with having classes and full time work-- no time to fix this darn thing! I will dban it again tonight on my PC, although I'm beginning to suspect that it's not the hard drive.

I tried booting into Jaunty Ubuntu last night, and of course the screen was blank throughout boot. However, after a little bit of quiet after CD access, it dropped back to plain text to tell me that it was the wrong disc for that CPU (64-bit). I was just stupid and forgot to label it as such, but what's interesting is that it tried to do it. And didn't restart itself. When I tried again with the 32-bit disc, I listened carefully to the CD access sounds, figured out when it was as the boot menu for Ubuntu (which is a GUI), and pressed Enter knowing that the top option was "Try Ubuntu without installing." Then the CD began spinning again and continued booting. Still no picture for any of this.

What sold me was this: when I pressed the power button, it didn't just click off, but after a moment the CD drive popped open and the power remained on-- exactly what Ubuntu does when shutting down. It prompts you to eject the CD before continuing.

What on a computer would allow plain text and BIOS screens to be successfully sent to the monitor, but nothing else?

I'm beginning to think it's the motherboard.

 

I wonder if a Hiren's Boot Cd would work. It contains SeaTools. It has all text interface at boot. Screenshots

 

Thanks. I tried getting to that site yesterday and it must've been down temporarily. I must've spent 10 minutes scouring this site for a download link of any kind. I'll try that later tonight.

 

It's a great resource. Try here and select version 9.9 the link is working.

The other thought is have you tried just one stick of memory?

And, I know your thinking it is not video but what type of monitor was being used at the owner's house. If I'm correct you've never actually gotten any kind of splash screen to work since you connected it to your monitor. That seems strange.

 

It's on my list of things to do! As for Hiren's, I got 10.0 via torrent. The server bandwidth for that website is just too slow for 186 MB.

It's a dell 15" at the customer's house, and I have gotten the BIOS splash screens, and intermittently the Windows splash screens, but only when it's trying to restart the second part of setup. It hasn't succeeded yet. Yes, I too am perplexed when I see a GUI loader screen, but it only happens every so many boots.

I think it actually happens when the CPU is cool, and the heatsink is very hot to the touch fairly quickly after a few minutes. CPU overheating explains the infinite restarting I've been seeing, but it doesn't make sense considering it would have been overheating at the customer's house, too.

 

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic120761.html

This person had a similar issue with the same Dell model. In fact, I just did a search for Dell 4600 blank display and it came up with a ton of hits. I'm apparently not alone with this bizarre PC affliction.

I'm going to try flashing the BIOS tonight after testing the rest of the hardware with Hiren's. Worked for this guy.

 

I think I've figured it out. And I'm going to kick myself in the head repeatedly if it's true.

I noticed there's an "OS install mode" option in BIOS, but I figured it to be optional. According to this forum, it's not. I swear, if that's what does the trick... well... actually, I'll be relieved if that does the trick. Just annoyed, as well.

 

Before flashing the BIOS I would try resetting it again (safer). It looks like that guy had a flashing cursor. You are not getting a flashing cursor are you?

The OS install mode doesn't sound like a bad idea to check but it looks like it is only applicable if you have lots of RAM and are installing an older OS that won't support more than 2gb or RAM. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4600c/sm/syssetup.htm

Setting the Integrated Devices (Legacy Select Options)>Onboard Video Buffer to 8mb would make sense except 1mb wouldn't be default if it wasn't acceptable for loading an OS.

I'm coming up blank. I see memory, PSU and HD as most likely. Memory you could swap out using one stick. HD you could try an old one to see if you could load XP on it or unplug the HD and see if your live linux CD will load with graphics. PSU swap out if you have an extra one.

I'm looking around on google at this point but haven't seen anything that fits exactly.

 

That Dell description of the OS install mode sounds like it may be dumbed down.

I can think of several other ways in which a BIOS may need to be modified to allow an OS to install;
CPU speed (some early OS's may report a 2Gb CPU as 2Mhz and refuse to install),
Hard drive and partition size reporting (recent OS's may refuse to install on > 2Gb, 32Gb, 128Gb drives/partitions),
Unlocking the boot sector of the hard disk (turning off boot sector 'anti-virus', poor implementations of this could disallow later OS's like XP > Vista to install their boot sectors).

 

OK, I'm finally back at the computer.

I erased the MBR and tried installing Windows using the OEM disc with OS Install Mode turned on. Changed nothing. As usual, it's a blank screen, but the CD and hard drives behave normally for the second part of the Windows installation.

The CPU overheats when the green vent hood is lifted off, which I found interesting, so I've got a small work fan blowing air directly at it.

The capacitors all look fine.

I replaced all 4 256-MB memory sticks with one of my working 512 sticks. I also put my testing (working) video card into the AGP slot. So it now has memory that I know works and a video card that I know works, as well as a disconnected hard drive. Ubuntu STILL doesn't display anything, although I can hear it loading. At some points, the monitor will flash for a second and I can see the linux courier-like typeface saying "loading..." for a split second before going blank again.

It's not the memory, hard drive, or video card. That leaves the motherboard, CPU, PSU, and CD drive.

 

This whole time, I never doubted my monitor, and I should have. I switched to my normal display, a Dell 24", and I see everything. Of course, now there's an error during the second part of Windows setup, but that's no doubt because of the number of times I forced the PC to shut down in the middle of it.

I'm reinstalling Windows one more time to see if that does the trick. I'll repost if necessary, but I'm betting it's the monitor. The customer's PCI cards, memory, and video card have all been replaced. I'm glad nothing was damaged en route. It just sucks that my monitor's broken. lol

 

Yup, confirmed: I'm an idiot. At least I tested it, so I can feel good about that. I just wish it was the first thing I tested and not the last.:-o

 

I'm glad you've got it sorted.

Is the monitor confirmed bad on another PC? I'm just curious because that is why I asked about dvi/vga adapters being used. It seems that when people get weird problems with monitors it is usually the newer monitors that cause the problems. Switch to an old CRT out of the basement and they see everything. I'm trying to figure out if the monitor is bad or just not compatible with that PC for some unknown reason.

Good Luck with finishing up your install.

 

Right, I just moved on since I wasn't using an adapter, but I definitely should have tested it regardless.

The problem, as I figured out using Troubleshooter off the Hiren disc, was not whether something was a GUI or not, but the resolution. My monitor wouldn't display anything 640x480 or higher in rez. Highly bizarre.

Thank you very much for you tenacity and loads of help. :drink

 

It may work on a Windows installation if you download a driver for it, perhaps Win installation disc doesn't have one. (Not for your customer's PC)

Don't forget to check that onboard video is disabled in Device Manager. Sometimes it causes a conflict after a new install.