Computer powers on but no signal to the monitor

I've been having a horrible time with my computer. I'll list out everything that's happened so far if i can remember it all. Ive had enough problems that it seems like every component in my system is fried or something.
Antec p180
Asus p5b deluxe
Corsair XMS 2x1gb
2x74gb raptors in raid 0 (and secondary 300gb drive)
evga 7900gt
intel core 2 duo 6400 (overclocked to 3.2ghz at the time of the crash)
Tuniq heatsink (massive one with 120mm fan inside of it)
2xoptical drives
FSP 500watt psu
creative SB audigy platinum something or other doesnt really matter

Alright so last thing i was doing was burning DVDs in both drives at the same time while accessing data from my raid configuration and my secondary drive. So basically, i was running every component in my system and some of them fairly hard. I had gotten through about 24 DVDs and then I left it to burn 2 DVDs while I went to bed. When I woke up, the DVDs had finished and my screen was just sitting on the "burning complete" but it was completely frozen.
So I restarted my computer left it on overnight again and in the morning, it was frozen. It was idling all night long and it still froze. But after I restarted it that time, I got a "Disc read error. Ctrl alt del to restart". This appears between POST and the windows logo loading sign (which never appears because of the read error)
So I restart my computer again and it never even sends a signal to my monitor. The light on the monitor remains orange. So I moved my video card to the secondary pci-e slot and power on my computer and it gets into windows but then imediately restarts with a "disc read error" again. I restart and I fail to get a signal to my monitor
So I flip the ram around and I get the exact same results; computer boots into windows, restarts, and then i get a disc read error. So I restart and I AGAIN fail to get a signal to my monitor.
I decided to throw in a pci video card and try out my vga cable instead of dvi. Still no signal to the monitor.
I work at compusa so i picked up an ANTEC Trio 650w psu and throw that in with my pci card. Everything imediately boots up straight into windows but again, imediately restarts. During this time, I had my two raptors sitting outside of my case. The grinding noise coming from one/both of them was deafening. After the restart, "disc read error"
Now to top it all off...
I throw in my 7900gt in place of the pci card and still get a "disc read error". I restart and then I get no signal to my monitor.
So I switch back to my old psu and still no signal.

No matter what I do now between two video cards and two psu, i can't get a signal to my monitor.

Symptoms
-Disc read error; ctrl alt del to restart
-restarts while booting into desktop
-no signal being received by the monitor

Inconsistencies
-replacing the video card occasionally solves my "no signal to monitor" problem but not all the time (or even the majority)
-Replacing the psu at first seemed to have an effect on the signal going to the monitor, but now there's no difference between using the two.

I'm thinking I still may have a bad psu since I didn't have any problems until I was really pushing my system by running everything. I think when my old psu gave out, it took some other part/s out with it (video card, harddrive, mobo, ram?)

I'm at a complete loss. I'm going to take out my mobo, set it on a cardboard box, and do a barebones start. I'll probably end up buying some ram and trying an entirely different video card to help troubleshoot my problems.

... Sounds like one of your HD's is bad. Try installing OS to the 300gb and see what happens.

Cycle power to your monitor during windows bootup, it helps sometimes.

Yup, sounds like what happened to one of my old 36gb Raptors when i had them. I'd have to agree with Mav on installing to the another drive.

See if you can get to a friends house or another machine at your place and download WD's diagnotic utility for DOS, either burn the CD image or create a floppy and boot from that to see which drive is giving you the trouble. One you narrow it down, do a fresh install to the one that lives and RMA the other drive.


~ Gos

As the others have said this sounds like a hard drive problem. I think last time this happened to me was on my WD 80GB which was a few years old at the time. WD hooked me up with a new one in 3 days via advanced RMA.

I'm going to take a slightly different tack and see if you can look at your ram a little closer.

I don't think a bad HD would cause any sort of video problems, it would simply not load or give you an error. RAM is notorious for making symptoms not make sense and make you think that other parts of the system are bad when they are not.

See if you can boot to a floppy or some such and get some memory test going. (I have not needed to test memory so dunno what tools are out there for that)

DorianBrytestar said:

I'm going to take a slightly different tack and see if you can look at your ram a little closer.

I don't think a bad HD would cause any sort of video problems, it would simply not load or give you an error. RAM is notorious for making symptoms not make sense and make you think that other parts of the system are bad when they are not.

See if you can boot to a floppy or some such and get some memory test going. (I have not needed to test memory so dunno what tools are out there for that)

Click to expand...

Wow, you were the only one that realized I can't do anything with my harddrives until I find out why I'm not getting a signal to my monitor. So thanks for all the input on the harddrives, but back up to the part about me not getting a video signal on a pci video card via vga or a pci-e video card via dvi.

I was suspecting ram as well which is why I tried reseating them. It booted into windows and then restarted my computer and then out of no where i get the no signal problem again. Odd that simply reseating the ram would allow me to get a signal to my monitor only one time between at least 30 that i've been powering this on.

You said in your original post that you were not sure of the PSU.
Have you tried testing it, or can you borrow one to try?

Peepaw said:

You said in your original post that you were not sure of the PSU.
Have you tried testing it, or can you borrow one to try?

Click to expand...

Reread my post.

Bongopukerat said:

I work at compusa so i picked up an ANTEC Trio 650w psu and throw that in with my pci card. Everything imediately boots up straight into windows but again, imediately restarts. During this time, I had my two raptors sitting outside of my case. The grinding noise coming from one/both of them was deafening. After the restart, "disc read error"
Now to top it all off...
I throw in my 7900gt in place of the pci card and still get a "disc read error". I restart and then I get no signal to my monitor.
So I switch back to my old psu and still no signal.

No matter what I do now between two video cards and two psu, i can't get a signal to my monitor.

Click to expand...

Have you tried the simple route? Reset your CMOS. First thing I do when something messes up and I can't boot. Your motherboard may have gotten into a weird 'mode' from the crashing. Just a thought.

bongopukerat said:

Wow, you were the only one that realized I can't do anything with my harddrives until I find out why I'm not getting a signal to my monitor. So thanks for all the input on the harddrives, but back up to the part about me not getting a video signal on a pci video card via vga or a pci-e video card via dvi.

I was suspecting ram as well which is why I tried reseating them. It booted into windows and then restarted my computer and then out of no where i get the no signal problem again. Odd that simply reseating the ram would allow me to get a signal to my monitor only one time between at least 30 that i've been powering this on.

Click to expand...

Instead of reseating both have you tried simply running one stick at a time?

this happened to my friend. Take out your graphic card and put it back in. This solution worked with him but it might be different for you. Trying wouldn't hurt.

He's switched cards a couple of times already.

thideras said:

Have you tried the simple route? Reset your CMOS. First thing I do when something messes up and I can't boot. Your motherboard may have gotten into a weird 'mode' from the crashing. Just a thought.

Click to expand...

Hehe, have you tried the obvious yet?

thideras said:

Hehe, have you tried the obvious yet?

Click to expand...

Haha yeah that was one of the first things I did. Didn't help at all.
But I actually did get it running again but I really can't say what I did to fix it.
I decided to take out my mobo and reseat the heatsink. I just set my mobo on my desk and plugged in the ram, video card, and the reseated heatsink/cpu. I also used the new antec trio 650w in place of my fps 500w.
When I did that the sysem posted instantly. I turned it off and on several times and it was completely stable. So I plugged in my two raid harddrives and it booted right into windows. I scrambled to grab my external hdd and backed up everything I could.
Surprisingly, everything is still stable. I also set it through that disc check error thing and also a defrag/cleanup. Absolutely no errors and my system has been running stable for 2 days now.

Weird, eh? So did I have a bad psu, bad mount, or was something grounding out?

bongopukerat said:

Haha yeah that was one of the first things I did. Didn't help at all.
But I actually did get it running again but I really can't say what I did to fix it.
I decided to take out my mobo and reseat the heatsink. I just set my mobo on my desk and plugged in the ram, video card, and the reseated heatsink/cpu. I also used the new antec trio 650w in place of my fps 500w.
When I did that the sysem posted instantly. I turned it off and on several times and it was completely stable. So I plugged in my two raid harddrives and it booted right into windows. I scrambled to grab my external hdd and backed up everything I could.
Surprisingly, everything is still stable. I also set it through that disc check error thing and also a defrag/cleanup. Absolutely no errors and my system has been running stable for 2 days now.

Weird, eh? So did I have a bad psu, bad mount, or was something grounding out?

Click to expand...

Unless it starts giving you trouble again, you will never know.

bongopukerat said:

Haha yeah that was one of the first things I did. Didn't help at all.
But I actually did get it running again but I really can't say what I did to fix it.
I decided to take out my mobo and reseat the heatsink. I just set my mobo on my desk and plugged in the ram, video card, and the reseated heatsink/cpu. I also used the new antec trio 650w in place of my fps 500w.
When I did that the sysem posted instantly. I turned it off and on several times and it was completely stable. So I plugged in my two raid harddrives and it booted right into windows. I scrambled to grab my external hdd and backed up everything I could.
Surprisingly, everything is still stable. I also set it through that disc check error thing and also a defrag/cleanup. Absolutely no errors and my system has been running stable for 2 days now.

Weird, eh? So did I have a bad psu, bad mount, or was something grounding out?

Click to expand...

But as long as it is working, I wouldn't care much!