No video

I am trying to fix a computer for a friend. He told me the computer had "viruses and trojans" and would just lock up. Well I got it home to have a look and the machine seems to boot up just fine, but the screen is black... as in no video output at all. I tried swapping out the power supply, hard drive, re-seated the ram disconnected the optical drives. The result is the same every time. The drive spins up the fans kick in... it sounds like it is functioning but no picture. There is no graphics card just on board graphics from the mother board. I thought about putting in a graphics card and conncect the monitor to that but this has the old pci slots only (no agp or pci express) and I have no pci card to try. My guess is that it is a motherboard issue. Anyone have any suggestions for me to try? This is an older dell dimension 2400 running xp.

 

I'm by no way an expert, but I think (my opinion) you have to get a pci card for no other reason so you can get video working. It's going to be extremely hard to diagnose a problem when you can't see what it is doing or not doing.
You said it boots up and everything is fine, but no picture, then everything is not fine you are guessing.
Get the cheapest card that will fit his computer boot it see if there are error messages, clean it remove the malware if any and then you can tell if it's the Mobo with the onboard graphics. If it is the problem then you have another decision. continue to use the pci card or replace the mobo.
Like I said I'm not an expert this is just my opinion, check back someone may come through and post with a better solution.

 

Hi Dew,

If there is no video during boot then either the Video is bad on the Motherboard or the Monitor is bad. Borrow another comp and/or another Monitor to find out which it is. Video driver for boot in the BIOS. Adaptor driver does not even have to be loaded to get video on Boot.

Good Luck, Jim

 

you may want to try to reset the bios, by either the jumper, or take the cmos battery out for about a 1/2 hour.

 

Ok... think I will try putting a pci graphics card in and see if I get video that way. If that works I suppose using a pci graphics card would be the cheapest way to solve the problem. But if I were to replace the motherboard were do I find a replacement for one that old?

 

everest report
you need to run an everest report to see what exactly is in your computer you can only run it once the computer is up and you can see the report. post the results and someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.

Or since you have the computer opened anyway, see if you can find a manufacture and a model number and post the name here and again someone may be able to point you in the right direction