Member Avatar for Bobbert116

Hey everyone. I've been having trouble booting up my desktop computer. It was restarting randomly a few days earlier, but I thought it was just because it was overheating. I put an additional fan next to my computer, and the crashes seemed to stop. However, this stopped working and now I'm unable to boot up my computer at all. It will give me the "Check the monitor cable to video card" message until I restart it a few times (Because of this, I believe it may be the video card that's causing the problems), and eventually it will get to the bios screen. When I get to the bios screen, the computer freezes before I can do anything and I have to restart it again. Does anyone know what could be causing this? It's using an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe Mainboard and a Radeon 9200 video card. Thanks very much in advance.

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Quick recap and context: reported intermittent restarts that briefly improved with extra cooling, then a persistent “check the monitor cable to video card” message and a freeze at the ASUS splash screen after a single beep. That single beep is only meaningful when checked against the board BIOS vendor in the manual, and several members already suggested BIOS/CMOS checks (), beep-code lookup (), and minimal-hardware testing (). The notes about KVM and a swapped CD-ROM from and are also relevant because external devices and recent hardware changes commonly change POST behavior.

Targeted diagnostic order (builds on earlier suggestions without repeating them):

  • Prioritize power and caps: intermittent restarts then a boot hang often point to power delivery or aging electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard or graphics card. A visual inspection for swollen, leaking, or crusted caps on both the board and the Radeon 9200 is quick and often decisive. If a known-good PSU or meter is available, test voltages under load or temporarily swap the PSU.
  • Isolate the video path: confirm whether the problem follows the Radeon 9200 (test the card in another working PC or test a known-good card in this system). Swap monitor cables and a different monitor. Remove KVMs, USB hubs and any recently added drives and connect keyboard/mouse/monitor directly, since those devices have frozen systems in other cases here.
  • Narrow the board vs. card: if the system still freezes with a different, working GPU and a good PSU, the motherboard is the most likely remaining suspect. If swapping the GPU fixes the problem, the Radeon or its AGP interface is at fault.

Advanced notes and cautions: a POST debug card or the motherboard manual will give definitive POST-stage codes; relying solely on a single beep is risky. Reflashing the BIOS should be a last resort because a failed flash can render the board unusable. If both PSU and GPU swaps fail to cure the freeze, plan to bench-test or replace the motherboard.

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Member Avatar for Bobbert116

The exact place it gets to is the ASUS Splash Screen, if that helps. on the "splash screen" it shows press tab to show post, and press alt+F2 to flash bios.. but neither gives any response. Another thing I forgot to mention.. it beeps once before freezing, does that mean the POST was successful?

Member Avatar for goupersky

hi there i think you have to turn off the PC then reset your CMOS settings including changing the lithuim battery then set jumper to clear CMOS. after that check AGP, memory as well processor level if it fits well as far as its proper positioning is concern. the nafter checking tturn on the PC and check BIOS settings again by using default settings and save it for good. Then re-start the PC again...

Member Avatar for tje210

check asus's website or google to see what a single beep means. that beep you hear is a 'beep code'. it can mean different things depending on if it's a long or short beep (which is kind of subjective unless you know what you're listening for). considering that you're having video problems, it could be that a single beep indicates a video failure. regardless of my guessing, check that out. if nothing else, try switching out the video cable. is the monitor plugged into an AGP or PCI/PCIe video card? if so, plug it into the video port that's built into the motherboard. if not, try acquiring a video card to plug the monitor into.

Member Avatar for suryaworldedu

replace the ram then try once again.

Member Avatar for the2smithboys

What worked for me is unplugging everything but 1 stick of RAM, your hard drive, and your optical drive and booting up with a system restore disc in the tray. If that doesn't work, try it again with your hard drive unplugged. If you don't have a system restore disc, use another computer running the same OS as yours to make one.

Member Avatar for Member #225258

After updating windows, the machine would no longer boot using a kvm connection freezing at the bios screen (Dell logo). When I plugged in a seperate keyboard, display, and mouse, it booted right up again.

Edited by Member #225258
Member Avatar for faroukmuhammad

Did you Install a new hardware? CD-Rom?

Member Avatar for faroukmuhammad

Sorry guys if my previous post caught you off guard but for ASUS it is often true.

Once there was this ASUS that I replaced its CD-ROM and it started halting (as is in this thread), so I put jumper in the HDD to make it slave and it worked.

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