Dead PC maybe?

My work PC seems to have died but not in a way that I've ever encountered:

Nothing at all in terms of Video output
both HDDs seem to spin up
LAN card lights blinking

I assumed this meant that the VGA chip (on board) had died so I bought and installed a new graphics card

PC seems to boot up fine, HDDs spin up, CPU fan spins up but still no video

I've tried different monitors, connection types and cables

It's only a crappy PC but it seems a strange way to die

Any ideas?

If you haven't done this already:

- Pull every card out of the computer, if any. Every. Single. One.

- Remove all keyboards, mice, sound devices, USB devices, everything.

- Remove all RAM sticks.

- Disconnect hard disks from the motherboard.

- Plug only the VGA cable into the onboard VGA port. Nothing else is plugged into the computer except the power cord and the VGA cable.

- Then, see if you get any video output when you turn it on. The computer won't "work" but you should at least get a BIOS message on the screen complaining about a lack of RAM.

If you get any video output, then power off, begin adding items back in one at a time, and power on again with each item, until you reproduce the problem with a single specific item.

Will try that

Haven't got round to testing but I bought a new HP PC to replace it, the thing started randomly locking and screen would go crazy, I spoke to support they reckon it's a dodgy DIMM!

Indeed, could be. Did you transfer the DIMMs from the old PC to the new replacement PC?

The support tech probably already suggested that you use Memtest86 to check and be sure.

In addition to what Tony suggested, while you have all the cards out and everything disconnected from the mainboard, if it has a removable BIOS battery, you can try popping it out for a while and then put it back. Occasionally that does the trick.

I have had a battery fail in the past, didn't think of that at all. I have a spare here, will test it when I have a moment.

He didn't ask me to run memtest, he was quite certain that it was a memory issue based on the beeps. I had ordered 2 x 32gb DIMMs for upgrade anyway, I installed them last Thursday it's been running fine since.

I don't see how you can get by with only 64GB of RAM. Why, MY computer has fully one-quarter of that amount!

I'm jealous! Actually, no, the most demanding application I ever run is Quake 3 Arena. It's a struggle, but I get by. Somehow...

tanstaafl.

RAM is pretty cheap at the moment…

😉

I've always managed to get by with 8gb but am currently doing a lot of stuff on quite large files in Photoshop, I'm hoping this will improve things