monitor question

[repo man11]

The IT person at work gave me a monitor today. 17" KDS, decent quality. When you hook it to a computer, it says "self test, check cable or computer". turn on the computer, the bios screen comes on, then the monitor turns off. I think it has a bad cable, and I suspect that it will be fine if I replace the cable. My monitor does something similar when it is turned on, and I disconnect it from my computer. Are there any monitor experts out there who can tell me if I'm on the right track?
Actually, the test screen comes on whether or not it's plugged in to a computer.

[CrystalMethod]

Check to see if your video card is fully seated in it's slot. Swap cables if you can (and have a spare). Actually use the screws that are on the connector to your vid card (a lot of us bypass this because we hook up and disconnect our monitors often, because we're playing in our systems a lot).

[Ridenow]

The "self test, check cable or computer" message is a common test. It means that the monitor works fine, but it is not getting a signal from the computer. This could be the cable, the connection could be loose or the video card could have a problem. If you have reconnected everything and another monitor works fine on the computer then I think you are right, the cable is bad.

[repo man11]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, she gave it to me because it wasn't working. I'm just trying to diagnose it to have a spare. When I tested it on a known good computer, with the cable screwed down, it responded no differently when it was connected to the card than it did when it wasn't.The screen it displays is similar to the one my Samsung has when I unplug it from my 'puter. The difference is mine stops displaying this screen the moment I plug it into my machine. I was going to try a cable from another cheapie monitor I have,(a dumpster salvage whose only problem is it's very cheap) but it's internal connection is different. My plan is to buy a cable for this monitor, which I think will fix it. It would probably be a $200.00 monitor, so if a cable fixes it, it'd be a sweet deal. I just thought I'd throw it out there to see if anyone else had a similar situation, and knew for sure that that was the proper fix. Thanks for the input.

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by repo man11
Sorry if I wasn't clear, she gave it to me because it wasn't working. I'm just trying to diagnose it to have a spare. When I tested it on a known good computer, with the cable screwed down, it responded no differently when it was connected to the card than it did when it wasn't.The screen it displays is similar to the one my Samsung has when I unplug it from my 'puter. The difference is mine stops displaying this screen the moment I plug it into my machine. I was going to try a cable from another cheapie monitor I have,(a dumpster salvage whose only problem is it's very cheap) but it's internal connection is different. My plan is to buy a cable for this monitor, which I think will fix it. It would probably be a $200.00 monitor, so if a cable fixes it, it'd be a sweet deal. I just thought I'd throw it out there to see if anyone else had a similar situation, and knew for sure that that was the proper fix. Thanks for the input.

well i hope it was the cable, cuz KDS monitors are said to be very good, i almost got one a while back when i had money but i just bought some other pc stuff...
id liek to know if the new cable fixed it :)