Computer not outputting video or audio, help!

[BaconXBits]

So completely randomly while surfing the net, scary neon symbols covered my screen, and my sound turned to static. Shortly thereafter my computer decided to restart on its own. My computer ran fine for the rest of the night, and I turned it off when I went to bed. For the next three or four startups/boots, nothing would display until the Windows login screen (eg the mobo info, bios messages, etc). Today, my computer thought it would be cool to take it a step further, and stop displaying video and audio entirely. My monitor reads "No signal," and the Windows tunes don't play when they should.

I went and took the liberty of ripping open my computer and dusting and replugging in everything, and that didn't fix it. Not a big surprise there.

I highly doubt it's a monitor issue, since to my knowledge monitors typically don't cause your computer to crash. I've only had this motherboard for less than six months, but I do have my old refurbished (previously broken, what luck) mobo that I can replace to see if it fixes the issue (which I would rather leave as a last resort).

Here's my specs if it helps:
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo
CPU: Intel Q6600 Quad
GPU: EVGA GeForce 8800GTX
PSU: Corsair 700W modular
RAM: Corsair DDR2 4GB

 

[trickson]

what are the temps CPU video ?
Sounds like a video card issue to me . from my experiance once you get artifacts on screen video card is going out .

 

[BaconXBits]

first of all ,clear your cmos and test with one ram stick (i think you have 2x2GB).

I have 4x1GB, and how would I go about clearing my CMOS (and what does that do)?

what are the temps CPU video ?
Sounds like a video card issue to me . from my experiance once you get artifacts on screen video card is going out .

Would that have any effect on sound too, though? That went crazy when the problem first occurred.

 

[Exile_Chavez]

I would vote either the motherboard is going out, or the power supply is dying.

That or a mega virus. I have heard of viruses doing that. And since you can't really get booted, can't really fix it. If you have a linux disc by chance, then try to get to your bios and switch the boot order(so you can run live CD) so that you can at least be able to look into files and various other components you can't without an OS. That is how I fix most of my random crashes.

 

[sandiegoborn32]

I have 4x1GB, and how would I go about clearing my CMOS (and what does that do)?

Clear your CMOS by removing the CMOS battery. That's the round silver piece on your motherboard that looks like a button cell battery. It's the piece in your motherboard that stores all of your BIOS settings, as well as the time and date of your system. When you take it out for about 20-30 seconds, it resets all of your BIOS settings to the factory defaults, including your clock speeds and voltages. So, if you have recently overclocked anything in your system, you should reset your BIOS, just in case. Any wrong custom settings in the BIOS can make your system unstable, and may cause permanant damage to your hardware.

Would that have any effect on sound too, though? That went crazy when the problem first occurred.

No, unless you have your video card hooked up through an HDMI cable that carries both video and audio. Your sound typically comes from the integrated sound chip on your motherboard, or a sound card. So, if your sound is messed up, it is either because your motherboard is dying, or it could be wrong custom settings in the BIOS that is making your system unstable.

Also, since your video card is displaying artifacts and distortions on screen, your motherboard could be the culprit. If your motherboard is failing, then none of your hardware is going to work properly, including your video card and sound.

What I suggest you do is test all of your components on a separate working motherboard to see if they all work. If your components all work on that working motherboard with no problem, but they don't work on your ASUS motherboard, then you need to replace your ASUS motherboard.

One more suggestion is to strip all of your hardware out of your system and leave only the neccessary components (CPU, Video, and 1 stick of RAM) and see if the system posts with those components. If it does, then your motherboard is not your problem. One of your components is probably preventing the system from working correctly. So test all of your components on your motherboard little by little (add another stick of RAM, then add your hard drive, etc.) until you come to that problem again where your system will not display anything, or output any audio. Once you come into that problem, remove the last component you added, and reboot with the working hardware. Once you figure out what component is preventing your system from working, you can just replace it with a working component, or just leave your system as is.

I hope this helped. If it did, I'm really happy to be of assisstance to you.

 

[BaconXBits]

A quick update on the situation:
For a few days I COULD boot my computer, but only after 3+ failed boots to auto-trigger a Windows Repair function. I was able to restart my computer after I've turned it on, but it seems that powering it off restarts the cycle (eg boot 3+ times next day). Today it was force-shutting down with much more ferocity, with artifacts and all.

So here's what I've done thus far:
-Booted my PC with my old HDD (which already has Windows XP on it)
-Booted my PC with my old PSU (which has plenty of voltage)

It should go without saying that the above approaches have not fixed the issue. I suppose I'm going to have to try and plug everything into my Gigabyte (old, refurbished one) motherboard, now. Wish me luck; I've never been amazing with motherboards.

Clear your CMOS by removing the CMOS battery. That's the round silver piece on your motherboard that looks like a button cell battery. It's the piece in your motherboard that stores all of your BIOS settings, as well as the time and date of your system. When you take it out for about 20-30 seconds, it resets all of your BIOS settings to the factory defaults, including your clock speeds and voltages. So, if you have recently overclocked anything in your system, you should reset your BIOS, just in case. Any wrong custom settings in the BIOS can make your system unstable, and may cause permanant damage to your hardware.

That shouldn't be the case, since I haven't tweaked anything in BIOS aside from configuring master/slave HDD's. I'll keep it in mind, though.

One more suggestion is to strip all of your hardware out of your system and leave only the neccessary components (CPU, Video, and 1 stick of RAM) and see if the system posts with those components. If it does, then your motherboard is not your problem. One of your components is probably preventing the system from working correctly. So test all of your components on your motherboard little by little (add another stick of RAM, then add your hard drive, etc.) until you come to that problem again where your system will not display anything, or output any audio. Once you come into that problem, remove the last component you added, and reboot with the working hardware. Once you figure out what component is preventing your system from working, you can just replace it with a working component, or just leave your system as is.

Good plan, I'll probably do something like this once my more tech-savvy friends return from college, if none of my easier methods have fixed it already.

 

[BaconXBits]

Alright, so I replaced my presumably broken ASUS motherboard with my "refurbished" Gigabyte motherboard. Of course, it turns out Gigabyte never even fixed the damn thing, so it's in the same broken condition it was when I sent it to them. Four hours of my night wasted, along with a good chunk of my sanity. Thanks, Gigabyte/ASUS!

I basically don't know what to do now. I'm not exactly optimistic about going through tedious RMA procedures, when I'm more than likely to be disappointed with the result anyway. Plus it's pretty much impossible to find a socket 775 motherboard nowadays.

I guess I'll have a friend rip out his GPU to see if it works on my motherboard tomorrow or something. My GPU and mobo really seem like the only things that can be broken right now, and I want to be 100% sure of what's broken before I go buy more likely-to-be-defective hardware.

Edit: Problem solved, turns out I just needed to replace my graphics card. Thanks for the help!