Resolved No Signal to Monitor

Helping a neighbor with a W7 Home HP Desktop. Computer was very slow and would freeze from time to time requiring manual shut down. Did some normal cleanup and Malwarebytes then ran CkDsk. It took several hours to run and at one point when I was watching it identified several problem sectors.

Suspecting a possible hard drive problem, I contacted the hard drive manufacturer, Hitachi and got instructions to download their HD diagnostic tool. Per the IT instructions, I had a choice of making the HD a slave on a desktop or using a SATA adapter and power supply and leaving the HD installed on the computer in question and accessing it via USB on my XP laptop which had the tool installed on it. The tool couldn't be used to scan the disk it was being run on. I chose the latter because removing the HD appeared to be pretty complicated - behind the DVD drive in close quarters.

When I ran the tool I had installed, it instructed me to select a drive - assuming the one I wanted to run would be shown in the tool. However, all the options were blank - no drive to select to scan. I planned to put the computer back together and go back to Hitachi. However, when I hit the computer power button, the computer appeared to be booting up normally but the monitor read "No signal ". I switched the DVI cable, tried a VGA cable, and tried another monitor - all with the same result. I should note that when I started to try to run the diagnostic tool, the computer was frozen and I had to do a manual shut down. I tried starting in Safe mode but no luck.

I now have a computer that I worked on that doesn't work - I should have stayed home. Can anybody give me a ray of hope?

 

Remove the RAM, clean the contacts, move to another slot. If more than one module, install just one at a time.

Remove any PCI cards, especially modem and network. Try and get to a bare minimum configuration until you get the computer going again.

 

Hi Robert, What is the model of the HP Desktop your working on?
How is the connection between the comp and your laptop conducted through USB? Neil.

 

Thanks for the inputs.

Antik - I don't have access to the computer til later in the day. I plan to bring it to my place so I can work on it more conveniently and then I will try the steps you suggested.

Neil - When I get the unit I will post more specific information. I did print a Belarc Advisor report before the thing went south so I will have access to all the specs and specifics. Regarding accessing the hard drive - I left the hard drive in the computer but disconnected the internal cables to the hard drive. I then hooked up my Ultra USB 2.0 IDE/SATA Cable Adapter which which connects to a working computer via USB port.

 

The unit is back operating normally but with the original problem of freezing requiring manual shutdown.

Antik, I originally bypassed reseating the memory because of it's location. However, when I got the computer at my place where I could work on the innards, I pulled the CD/DVD unit out so I could get to the RAM. I pulled both of the 2GB sticks, cleaned the contacts and put one of them back in a different slot. The machine booted up fine - but slowly. I tried the other one with the same result. So now the machine is booted up but and operating fairly well with the exception of freezing occasionally. When it freezes I have to manually shut down.

Neil, the unit is HP s5550z, W7 Home Premium, 4GB.

I'm back now to wondering if there may be a hard drive problem. I'm reluctant to try to run the Hitachi HD diagnostic program again and that is where I lost the signal to the monitor. Any more suggestions?

 

Speccy will display the S.M.A.R.T. health status for the hard drive. If it is less than good that would be an indicator. The Hitachi Drive Fitness software should also display it.

Speccy will give you voltages coming off the power supply. Looking at specs for the model number, it appears the PS is only 220 watt. Besides the possibility of a bad PCI card, the idea behind stripping to a base config is to lighten the load if the power supply is weak.

Speccy will display values from the temp sensors. Look for any sign of overheating. Get rid of any dust and try running the computer with the cover off and an external fan blowing on the motherboard, especially the RAM modules.

Video is highly dependent on system RAM. I would test the RAM using Memtest or equivalent. If there is a graphics card, I would swap in another very basic card and see if there is any improvement.

Have you looked at Device Manager? Any question marks?

Have you looked at Event Viewer? Any errors?

I would check everything else before running the drive fitness software. If the drive is failing, testing will stress the drive and perhaps cause it to fail. Got backups?

Seagate software will test other brands, although can't repair them. There is a version you burn to a CD so the drive with the OS can be tested.

You might consider running the computer from a linux live distro on a cd or dvd or one of the rescue disks that does the same thing. There are versions that run entirely in RAM.

Five Best System Rescue Disks for Windows

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/system-rescue-disks-windows

Seagate Drive Tools

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/

Look really carefully at the cables on your USB adapter, and at all the cables on the computer. Try wiggling the wires gently while the computer is running. Cables are the el cheapo glue that binds the whole thing together.

Correction: Avoid the Hiren Boot CD
McAfee Site Advisor reports
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
Caution. We tested this link and found it might send your personal information to people online who can use it to access your financial information, or steal your identity.
Website Category: Phishing, Malicious Sites, Sports

 

I installed and ran Speccy. Under the Summary page I noted the following:
CPU - 21 C, Motherboard - 34 C, Storage (Hitachi HD) - 33 C. You mentioned possible bad PCI card. I assume you mean graphics card. It appears to me that the DVI and VGA connections are incorporated into the mother board and not separate card/s. I couldn't find any reference to power supply voltages. The unit appears to be clean on the inside but I did a little housework on it.

In the Storage category, the S.M.A.R.T. status was "Warning ". One similar situation mentioned in the Speccy forum indicated that "Warning" means you shoud be alert to potential HD problems - watch the values to see if they increase.

I ran Memtest and it said "Pass complete, no errors, press Esc to exit.

Device Manager - no problems noted.

Event Viewer - The only thing I could figure out that was pertinent was under Custom Views, Admin Events. There were some 5,970 warnings or errors - 1/4 of them since Jan 2014. They included Kernel-PnP, WLAN-Auto Connect, Print Service, Event Log, Kernel Power.

Should I try the Hitachi Diagnostic tool again or go with a Seagate tool which won't let me use a "repair" option?

 

That's a lot of errors. How much time and money are you willing to spend on this?

My first thought is a failing power supply. If you don't have clean power nothing is going to work right. With Speccy, click motherboard in the left column and the voltages should be mid page on the right. The only real test is to swap in a known good unit and see the results.

You have the Hitachi drive test so I would run it if you can slave the drive to another computer. With my USB adapter it sometimes takes quite a while for the connected drive to show up. Sometimes I nudge it by restarting or runnng Device Manager.

Before running the Hitachi test, read the report on what CheckDisk actually did:

Checkdisk report - Win 7

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

Hp has excellent documentation available online:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...c=en&docname=c02458055&lc=en&product=4242372&

The "Upgrading and Servicing Guide" (10.23 M) has step by step instructions with photos for getting to the innards and replacing the hard drive.

The Getting Started Guide" (585.29k) has quite a few troubleshooting suggestions.

Motherboard Specifications Foxconn H-Alpinia-RS780L-uATX has layout and photo:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/.../loc:2&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=4242372#N55

At some point you will want to check and be sure you have the latest drivers:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?product=4242372&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en

 

Hi Robert, I would try another PSU of larger capacity - but check the original one first to see whether it is of "dedicated" size. My experience with a couple of HP's is that the PSU is not always a standard ATX size unit. I had to modify the rear of the case in both to enable a Std ATX PSU to fit in.
HP PSU's are generally about a $100 bucks dearer! Neil.

 

Antik and Neil,

Thanks for all your time and interest but I think I'm pulling the plug on this one. I've spent a lot of time on this and now my neighbor is starting to talk about getting a new computer. My apologies but I should have changed the Thread Name from No Signal to Monitor to W7 Computer Freezes After Inactivity.

I am suspecting either the power supply or hard drive. I have 7 old XP units and one is a slimline with a comparable size power supply but the cabling was such that I couldn't use it even to test. The power supplies in these slimlines are long and slender, not like the squared off ones in the big boxes.

The Speccy test did give me a "Warning" regarding the hard drive. I ran CkDsk twice and so far I haven't been able to locate either log. I watched during the most recent CkDsk run and at one point I got the following message: File Record Segment 121500 is unreadable. I got the same message for Segments 121501, 121502, and 121503. I ran SFC and the message from it said "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." Not too sure what all this means but I don't plan to pursue it any further at this time. Thanks again.

 

Just replace the model number with your model number in the box. http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=VM114UA#ABA

 

ELL JAY 50,

I followed the instructions but I don't know what I was supposed to be looking for. If it was to direct me to a HP Power Supply, I didn't know what to look for.
I don't plan to do any more on this unit so I will mark this Thread as Resolved.

 

Thank you for posting what happened, and your decision. It's a wise man who knows when to fold a poor hand of cards.

 

Look for HP Part Number of the part you want to replace. Then google that part number to see if there is an appropriate upgrade for that part. Be careful some HP parts are proprietary.

 

Thanks lj50. I did put the unit model # in but couldn't locate anything specific to power supply. However, the neighbor has decided to go with a new Windows 8.1 unit so I am not pursuing it any further.

 

Thanks for the update.