Cant see a thing!!! Help

A friend of mine brought there comp to me and said the kids did somthing to it! Go figure.LOL Well my problem is I cant see any thig I know it works It has sound and you can hear it boot up and chime but no video whats wrong? Can some one help me with this.confused confused

 

Re-check yor connections first. also check to make sure the brightness and contrast settings on the monitor are not turned all the way down. Sorry, but that's all I know to help you.

 

Well I think you can have any number of different problems. First, I think it may be helpful to ask the kids exactly what they did. For example, did they disconnect the monitor plug and reconnect it (to a video card or onboard video)? Did they enter the BIOS? Just ask what happened and how. Then you can try making sure the monitor is connected properly, the bright and other settings are set correctly, ect (as others mentioned here). If it still doesn't work, try to connect the monitor to another machine, if possible. If it works on another machine or if you can't test it on another machine, can you get another monitor to test on your machine. It is possible that they set the BIOS to accept the onboard video and the monitor was connected to a video card? You can change the connector to the onboard if this is a possibility. I would say best bet is to try either another monitor on your system or another system with that monitor to see if the monitor is to blame and then try to determine if it is just a setting or if the monitor is blown. One more thought, but very doubtful, is that it could be a setting in the OS. Something like screen resolution where if set improperly, the screen will go blank, but will come back automatically if you do not click on "OK" to accept settings (you shouldn't be able to accept a bad setting, however, due to the fact that the screen will be black. They could have clicked "OK" blind, but it's doubtful. Then again, you should see it POST ok, I suppose. Few other very doubtful scenarios to consider: Drivers, did they burn a wrong BIOS to a video card or change drivers? Good luck, my man.

Generally
- If another monitor works fine on your machine, it is most likely related to the monitor itself.
- If your monitor works on another machine, it could be related to the video card or drivers to monitor (not PnP) or video card drivers/BIOS or BIOS settings.

 

Yep your right SWEETNES, The kids said they was trying to change the colors and stuff, One said that they were in the setup stuff, oh great.

 

Hmmm, ok. That may be your issue there then. I will try to figure out a way to fix settings once they are applied and obviously not good blindly (hopefully no reinstall of OS necessary). Again, if another monitor works, you can easily default the video settings (if you don't know how let me know), save the default and then reattach the old monitor and that will do it. Let me ask.....can you see the screen run POST at boot-up?

 

yes I can see the dell logo and the windows logo and then nothing but I can hear the chime for windows start up and when I plug in my jump drive I can hear it conn. and disconn. I think I have a major problem here. One of the kids said somthing about a monitor choice, think they dumped the mon?

 

When they say monitor choice they might of meant Analog or Digital.

I think on a Dell Choice 1 is Analog. Try changing the input to analog.

 

Ah Hello I cant see the screen..........

 

Ah hello you said you could see the dell logo and the Windows logo.zzz

 

Have you tried to boot to safe mode?

 

no it will not boot in safe mode. It will but no video.rolleyes

 

What kind (model) is it? As an example, http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/dci/m781p.htm#reset

Steve

 

That is not the problem the mon. works fine on my puter and others. One of the kids got into something and cliked ok or disable or something like that. Thats the story I get from the yung ones. And no it will not boot in safe mode.

 

I understand now. You might have to try "your" monitor, if it works, go in and see if they have a recent restore point or try adjusting some of the monitor or display settings.

Steve

 

are yall not understanding me? I CAN'T SEE A THING WITH THIS COMP. IT WORKS BECAUSE I CAN HERE IT GO THROUGH THE BOOT SEQU. THEN NOTHING. I KNOW IT STILL WORKS BECAUSE I CAN HERE MY JUMP DRIVE CONECT AND DISCONECT. NOW HOW CAN I HOOK MY COMP UP TO IT SO I CAN SEE WHAT IS GOING ON?

 

Try hitting F2 at startup......anything?

Steve

 

yes i can hit f2 and i get into the sys setup or whatever it is.

 

What kind of options do you have? Dell may have something in there you can use, or does it just look like this.

Steve

 

yea somthing like that.

system time..............................................11:33
systyem date .......................................... tue jan 09 2007

drive config...........................................<enter>

and so on you know what it looks like i hope.

 

Well, I was hoping it might offer something different you could use. Like a Dell feature to go back or diagnostic mode........nothing like that?

Steve

 

nope

 

Wait for some other suggestions, I can't think of anything else.

What are your options with it just in case? Newer models have a Dell PC Restore by Symantec. Last resort of course. I don't know exactly what options might be available there.

http://support.dell.com/support/top.../en/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&dn=1090151

Steve

 

Sorry, I don't mean to confuse matters, but have you tried a DIFFERENT monitor with that computer? I wasn't clear on that. Thanks. Also, I never used Windows recovery before, but when you insert the Windows cd, you have that option. Now I don't know what options you may have after that, but you should be able to use that cd fine because it is before you boot into the OS, in fact it runs off the cd itself. Maybe there is an option to restore some defaults or something like that? I think what happened was they selected an unsupported monitor ratio and the screen went black and those settings were saved somehow (maybe shut off computer before screen came back locking in setting?). We need to restore defaults and all will be fine. I am wondering if the recovery console on the Windows cd has any such possibility? Does anyone know?

In an absolute worst case scenario you can reinstall the OS. That will guarantee a fix if nothing else, but that is a last recourse. If it was just the kids machine and there was nothing too important on it and all the software is available or everything is backed up, that takes some of the sting out.

 

yeap talked with dell and the only way is to reinstall the os. And it is the kids so no wrrys about loosing files or such. Thanks guys For all the help.:wave