Greetings -- I need an answer to a problem involving a new PC.  

The specs:
Magic-Pro mobo
Athlon XP2000 processor
300W case/pwr supply
Samsung Syncmaster 950B monitor
64MB video card (specs avail. if needed)
256MB ram
other specs on request

History/What I did...
Up until yesterday, this system ran just fine.  Since that time,
almost nothing has happened or changed.  No power events (brownouts,
blackouts, surges, etc) -- I live in Quebec thank God, so I missed
most of the ugly power issues Ontario's been facing... no new
hardware, no jolts or bangs to the case.

Today in the early afternoon, I left the PC on, then later powered it
off by holding down the power switch for a few seconds.  Win XP gave
its usual 'shutting down windows' thing then everything powered down. 
The next time I booted it, WinXP noticed a 'new' VGA video controller.
 Could have been the TV tuner I patch my monitor through.  Shut down,
removed the tuner, powered back on.

The Problem:
Now the machine boots -- sort of.  I can hear everything whirr away. 
It does a little test read of the CDRW and DVD drives, then the amber
HDD light goes on for a bit, then goes off.  The power light stays on
in green throughout this time.  However, no signal is received by the
monitor.  The monitor just flashes away in its standby mode.  I have
tested the monitor on another machine and it is known to be good. 
I've tried patching the monitor back through the tuner and still no
dice.  I've read about problems having to do with the power supply not
feeding enough power to the mobo and similar conditions ensuing... but
this seems kinda different.  It's a brand spankin' new PC.

And I don't get any signal at ANY point -- no BIOS or boot screens,
nothing.  I haven't heard it beep for better or worse during POST, but
I'm not sure I remember it ever beeping, even when it did work early
today.

I'll pay out to the first person who can link this to any known
problem or issue with my mobo, video card or CPU... it's under
warranty, but I want to 1) know the probable cause when talking to the
rinky-dink operation I bought it from, and 2) make sure there's
nothing I can do before having to FedEx away my baby for
god-knows-how-long.

Thanks everyone.

---

Request for Question Clarification by feilong-ga on 23 Aug 2003 21:55 PDT

Hi Lukasneville,

"The next time I booted it, WinXP noticed a 'new' VGA video
controller. Could have been the TV tuner I patch my monitor through.
Shut down, removed the tuner, powered back on."

Based on your description, the problem seemed to have started when you
installed the tuner. After you took out the tuner from the system it's
likely that a connection became loose. Please check that all the
peripheral cards are, power connectors, IDE cables, etc. are securely
attached to its proper connection.

-Feilong

power management might be confused.
turn it on, and then press the power button for 5 seconds.

Hey, I've got almost the same problem you described. BUT, I have an
entirely different spec:

ASUS mobo 
Intel P4 1.7 MHz processor 
400W case/pwr supply 
Viewsonic monitor 
GForce4-MX 64MB video card
256MB ram
WinXP Home

I also noticed that if I leave the power on standby, it will boot if I
hit reset several times after switching on. Maybe you should try this,
not a cure but just to see if it boots. If I unplugged it, it takes
more than 10 mins before it boots. I have changed video card, power
supply (300 to 400W), disconnected CD-R, CD/RW & floppy, rearranged
RAM, flashed new bios. Same problem. Once it boots, it works as
advertised. I hope you find a solution, maybe it will also help me.

It's possible that your video card may have become unseated. You could
try removing it and putting back in making sure it's in secure. Also,
if possible try switching the ram you have installed with another
dimm. I had a problem on a friends computer where no signal was
received by the monitor although everything would power up. The
culprit turned out to be bad ram.