PC Screen Blank But Computer Running - PC Hardware Questions & Answers

Mick writes in with a hardware question.
Question:My computer crashes and the screen goes blank and says no signal yet the base unit is still running. Then I have to reboot. Please help its driving me nuts. Thanks

Answer: It sounds as though you may have some hardware going out on you. Since the monitor says no signal I would start with the video card. If you have an onboard video card you may want to get a PCI or AGP video card to install in your computer to see if the onboard video is going out. I would get a PCI card in case you don't have an AGP slot. If you have a AGP card already you may want to get a PCI video card to see if the AGP card or AGP slot is going bad. If you have a PCI video card you can put it in another PCI slot as a test since you have more than one unlike an AGP slot.
 
It could also be a problem with other hardware such as your motherboard, memory or processor. If any one of these are bad it will lot let video be displayed on the computer.
 
There is also a chance it is software related. I would boot into Safe Mode and let it run for awhile to see if it crashes there too. You can also boot to a Windows CD or other bootable CD and let the computer sit there without going into Windows to rule out a Windows problem. If it stays running fine without being in Windows then you know to start looking into a Windows repair or reinstallation.

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