Problems rebooting

Electra_King

Hope someone can give me some advice. While on the internet my PC froze and even though the tower was still running the monitor came up with no signal message. So I tried to reboot and it was powering up lights, fan etc but still no signal. Checked all cables, left it alone, tried again still no signal. Read somewhere about cmos battery so replaced it. Now it reboots as far as black screen asking if I want to access BIOS, either way if I access or not, the windows screen then appears and instantly disappears and no signal appears again on the monitor. Any thoughts on what is happening and what I need to do?

rmg1

Do you have an extra graphics card?
If so, that may have gone kaput. How many sockets on the back of the PC for a monitor? If you've more than one, try the other one.

Electra_King

As far as I am aware I only have one graphics card and only one slot on the back for the monitor. How can I tell if it is the graphics card?

Figment

Sounds to me like the graphics card is falling over when the Windows drivers are being loaded.

What happens if you try to boot in safe mode?

Electra_King

Sorry not that computer savvy. How do I boot in safe mode?

Figment

Switch on. As soon as the logo screen (or the black screen with white text) appears, tap the F8 key once per second until a menu appears. (Sometimes it can be a bit tricky, so you may have to reboot and try a couple of times before you get it.)

Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the highlight bar to Safe Mode with Networking, then press the Enter key.

Be patient, it will take longer than normal to load and may pause for a few seconds. If it loads successfully the screen and icons will look huge compared to normal.

Electra_King

Yes managed to get it into safe mode up until login screen and the same thing happened again, no signal.
Another thing I noticed on the first black screen it says CMOS checksum error - defaults loaded. Not sure if that means anything?

Figment

Check the (new) CMOS battery with a multimeter if you have one to ensure it's not dead.

Check the battery is seated correcly and is the right way up.

Whilst you're inside the case, check that memory chips, graphics card (if an add-on) and any other peripherals are firmly seated.

Reboot the machine and go into the BIOS (you do this by pressing a specific key on your keyboard. The key you need should be displayed in the corner of the black screen - commonly F2 or DEL). Don't change anything, just Exit and Save Changes (again, how you do this depends on the mobo, so check the menus)

Electra_King

I don't have a multimeter but I have put the old battery in again and the same happens.
I have reseated every possible cable, board, etc the only thing I have not touched is the actual heatsink as I don't have paste. However I did remove the fan and gave it a clean.
I also tried your suggestion exit and save changes, again got me to the windows stage but then cut out.

Figment

I suspect the graphics card may be faulty, although if there's both an on-board and add-on graphics card, it's possible that resetting the CMOS has switched it to the wrong one. Check on the back of the PC - how many connectors can you see for graphics cards?

Electra_King

Sorry for late reply. I am 99.9% sure I only have one connection on the back for the monitor to attach to.