General IT Support - No display from PC

[butcher85]

Hi all,

Figured I'd ask around before I spend my hard-earned for someone just to take a look at it:

It seems my PC has decided not to output a display signal. When I turn it on, everything inside the case lights up like a Christmas tree. Power supply fan, video card fan, case fans and all their associated LEDs, deorative or functional, all come on.

But no display signal - I've tried several combinations of monitors / TVs, HDMI or DVI cables, GPU or onboard slot. I even went as far as removing the GPU figuring maybe it was fried but still, because it was present, the system was trying to route the output through it rather than the onboard. Didn't make a difference.

I've exhausted my very limited IT knowledge - anybody got an ideas? Any help is much appreciated




Ryzen 7 2700X and GF 1070 Ti if that helps

 

[Neilski]

As far as I know, the R7 2700X doesn't have an iGPU so removing it would not result in any kind of video output. However, the fact that you tried it without the GPU implies that it does have one (and that the motherboard has a video connector), so I'm confused... Unless of course it's simply that some of the AMD chips that are socket-compatible with the 2700X *do* have iGPUs of course...

Not sure what to suggest but one simple question you may be able to address is whether the PC actually booted up OK despite the video output being bust. If you have other devices connected to the same network (phone, laptop, tablet), and assuming that you have a broadband router of some flavour, you could connect to the router and ask it for the list of connected devices. (There are many ways for routers to present/describe this information.) If your PC shows up on the list of connected devices (or DHCP clients) then it's successfully booting, which would point the finger at the GPU.
However, it's entirely possible that a problem with *only* the GPU would prevent the machine from booting anyway, so you really only learn something useful if that test indicates that the machine did boot OK.

Does it make the normal sounds (beep(s) etc.) when it boots?

Getting your hands on another GPU somehow would be a very useful path to explore, I reckon.
If that doesn't work, it probably means it's the motherboard/CPU/RAM, or (less likely) PSU.

 

[butcher85]

First up, thanks @Neilski for the info and the quick reply

On to the issue - I popped the GPU back and fired her back up

In terms of beeps etc I don't recall it beeping when it was working

I connected a LAN cable (tested it first on my laptop just in case) and can confirm my router is reporting "there are no connected devices" under wired connections

So yeah, that's not good

I might be able to borrow a GPU but it might be a workstation one (e.g. Quadro). This may be a stupid question but would there be any compatibility issues swapping then? I assume they're the same connections

 

[blekenbleu]

I don't recall it beeping when it was working

Power off, unplug all RAM, then power on.
If no beeps, then bad power supply, CPU, motherboard or connection between.

 

[Neilski]

I might be able to borrow a GPU but it might be a workstation one (e.g. Quadro). This may be a stupid question but would there be any compatibility issues swapping then? I assume they're the same connections

A Quadro should work I reckon - if it's a PCIe GPU then I think it'll do something, however ill-suited it may be (e.g. much older or newer than your board). It may not boot properly of course, but if you get any kind of video output you'd probably want to go no further than the BIOS screen anyway. (Because at that point you've pretty much demonstrated that the fault lies with the GPU.)

But...

Power off, unplug all RAM, then power on.
If no beeps, then bad power supply, CPU, motherboard or connection between.

Good idea!
The only caveat here is that if the machine never used to beep at all, the machine may not actually have any speaker/beeper hooked up.

In terms of decoding any beeps that do happen, the motherboard manual (if you've lost the paper copy, it's almost guaranteed to be available online) should say exactly what beeps should occur for any given fault.

 

[trichens]

Just perhaps a couple of other tests.

Do the Caps Lock and Num Lock lights illuminate on the keyboard when you press the keys?

This tool https://www.advanced-ip-scanner.com/ will scan all IP addresses on your local network if you install it on your laptop so if the PC is booting up OK it will appear - along with everything else on your sub-net... and it is free.