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Hi,

My monitor won't start up when I boot my computer, there's a bit of a story so I'll start from the beginning...

About 3 - 4 months ago my monitor started playing up, when I booted the system the screen would be jumping, so I turned my machine off, tried again still the same thing, tried again a couple of days later same thing. I left it for about 3 months and came back and turned it on again, it worked. It worked for about a month with no problems.

Then today I turn it on and I don't get any output on the screen at all, but the computer is working, everything in the case is ticking over and making little noises like it normally does. So I turn it off and back on a couple of times. I check that everything is plugged in securely and the video card is in properly, it still doesn't work.

I thought maybe it was the monitor, so I got another monitor that I know works (plugged it into another computer) and it didn't work as well, so not the monitor. Then thought it was the video card, I have a pentium 3 and I have some olf pentiums lying around so I went and grabbed one of them video cards and plugged it in to my P3. I booted it up and it worked the first time, it booted into windows and everything, then it comes up with a blue screen that doesn't have any text on it and didn't do anything, so I restarted. Then the screen was blank again.

After countless times of rebooting the machine and checking everything was in it's place securely and plugged in properly it suddenly works again!

But now it hasn't worked again since then, I had to restart that time because I hadn't plugged in the mouse and couldn't do anything like check settings and such.

So if anyone has any ideas of what could be wrong I'd be so grateful to hear them! I really need this computer to work! I wouldn't be surprised if there was something wrong with something else in my computer because it makes a lot of chugging noises quite often, like something is about to die in there!

Thanks!

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Dani AI

Generated

Practical follow-up and verification steps relevant to 's thread. The guidance below focuses on safe, measurable checks after intermittent hardware faults and on preventing a repeat. These are practical actions a technician would run through to confirm a repair actually fixed the root cause and to catch any remaining power- or board-related problems.

  • Visual and mechanical checks: inspect electrolytic components and solder joints under good light or a loupe; look for bulging tops, brown residue, or cracked pads. Reseat cards, memory and all power connectors; clean contacts with isopropyl alcohol if corroded.
  • Power verification: measure PSU rails with a multimeter or use a dedicated PSU tester; swapping in a known-good PSU is the fastest way to rule the supply in or out. Check peripheral power connectors (Molex/SATA/PCIe) for heat damage or loose pins.
  • Post-repair validation: run a CPU/GPU/board stress cycle (30–60 minutes) to bring operating temperatures up and confirm stability. Monitor for reboots, device dropouts, or display issues while under load.
  • Replacement-quality and repair notes: prefer low-ESR, 105°C-rated capacitors from reputable makers; match capacitance and polarity and meet or exceed voltage rating. If multiple caps failed, consider recapping the whole affected group and verify solder-pad integrity when replacing parts.
  • Safety and backups: always unplug mains and discharge stored energy before working inside a PSU or board; if unsure about soldering or board repair, use a reputable shop and keep backups of important data before extended testing.

For background on electrolytic component failure modes and part choices see Electrolytic capacitor and Capacitor plague. If intermittent faults persist after these checks, further steps are to document the failure pattern, keep any repair warranty information, and consider a full PSU or board replacement.

Member Avatar for hippychic43

A little update here, I just got home and turned my computer on it worked, but wouldn't get past the screen that says Acer (that's my computer brand). I turned it off again and it wouldn't turn back on.

I noted whether other devices seemed to be turning on like my DVD ROM and yes the lights and all were flashing, a couple of tries later and it seems that no power is going to my DVD ROM anymore.

So I'm, suspecting it's the power pack and probably it's not sending out the power properly to everything, I'm about to try my video card in another machine to make sure it's not that.

As I said before my computer is a P3 I have some Pentiums lying around that I don't need and I want to try and transfer everything from my comp, motherboard and all to one of these other pentium cases and just use the pentium power pack. These power packs are different to my power pack in the way they attatch to the on/off switch, would it be ok if I hooked all of my P3 stuff up to the Pentium powerpack?

I just don't wanna ruin everything in my P3!

Thanks

Member Avatar for hippychic43

I took it to a repair shop and it needed new capacitors ( i think that's what they were called) on the motherboard

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