Member Avatar for jonrutman

I have a emachine amd pros. ati 9600 graphics card 512 ram. my computer turns on but monitor says *no signal* tried plugging monitor in both ports, monitor is good using it right now to post this... took the card ou and plugged it back in, took the ram out plugged back in... power supply is good any help would be great... this is my first post anywhere

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Quick recap: — system powers on but the monitor reports “No signal,” and you don’t hear POST beeps. ’s suggestions (beep codes, reducing the build) are a good starting point. The next steps below focus on diagnostics you probably haven’t tried yet or that give clearer evidence of which component is failing.

  1. Confirm the monitor and cable independently — unplug the video cable and watch for the monitor’s self-test message, and make sure the monitor’s input selection matches the cable type (VGA/DVI). If you’re using a DVI→VGA adapter, check the adapter and the DVI port for the analog pins (DVI‑I vs DVI‑D).
  2. If you don’t have a case speaker, temporarily attach a small motherboard speaker to the front-panel header so you can actually receive POST codes; many OEM boxes omit a speaker so “no beep” can be misleading.
  3. Try the motherboard’s onboard video (if present) or a known-good spare card to separate GPU vs motherboard failure. If the machine has no onboard output, borrowing any older card will quickly rule the GPU in/out.
  4. Do a visual inspection under good light: look for bulging or leaking electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard and video card, burnt marks, or cracked solder joints — these are a common cause of “power but no video” on older eMachines.
  5. Check PSU voltages with a simple PSU tester or multimeter (measure +12V/+5V on a Molex while the system runs). Fans and lights don’t guarantee correct rails under load. Also try removing the CMOS battery for a minute (power off, unplug first) if BIOS corruption hasn’t been attempted yet.

Work carefully (unplug the PSU and ground yourself when touching parts). If these steps still produce no POST/video, the fault narrows to motherboard or CPU — at that point swapping in a known-good PSU/GPU or taking the board to a shop for a POST-card test is the fastest way to reach a definitive answer.

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Member Avatar for Chaky

If it has a beeper, it should give you beeps when you try to boot with no VGA plugged in. Usually 7 shorts and 1 long beep, but depends on the BIOS. That way you would know that either the VGA is faulty (99%) or incompatible (1%) with the mobo/BIOS.

Member Avatar for jonrutman

i don't hear any beeps

Member Avatar for Chaky

Please explain:
Did it work before or you received it this way?
Is RMA possible? Did you try reseating RAM chips?

Does the HD spin up? If not, and if it is IDE, it is possible that it is faulty or the 40-pin cable is plugged upside-down on one side.

You should strip off all except CPU PSU and VGA. No memory, no drives, no PCI cards...
That is the only way to know if the motherboard, CPU, PSU and VGA are working. If it gives you no signal, then it is one of those 4. It can be either one of them.
It would be great if you could test it with another VGA, PSU and CPU to rule those out. Also, getting beeper would help diagnose the problem too. It could give you beep code of the faulty part.
If this machine you recently purchased and it was not turned on for long time, you should clear CMOS. There is a jumper and the instructions in your manual for that.

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