Topic: Please, please can someone advise me?

[celticfemale]

I'd be ever so grateful to anyone that can help me with this!. Today I inserted a new graphics card to my son's pc,whilst I was checking everything in bios my son nudged me I clicked on something to make the graphics thing start from the sys board! Now when I turn his pc on there is nothing on screen.Please can anyone tell me how to get into bios to change this?. I thought it would be easy to get back in there but nothing is on my screen.
I was going to fit another card but thought that silly as its the pc I have to try to get into lol.
Excuse the muddled titter tatter please, My head is now drowning as I've been trying now for 5hrs to resolve this lol.
I eagerly eagerrrrrrrrrrrrly await a reply.
   :-[  ( <--) my little erm £$%^%$££ Boy ) lol
Amber

[Sandra]

Hi Amber and
Probably the easiest way would be for you to use the Clear CMOS jumper on your motherboard, usually but not always next to the battery.
Just set it to the clear position for a few seconds then back to the normal run position.
The start your pc up and press DEL as its booting.
This should restore it to the initial settings and allow you to access the bios screen again  

I am moving this to the harwdware section as its more fiting in there :doggie:

[ketamininja]

Hi amber!

There are a few possibilities:

1) The cable is not connected correctly - remove and reconnect.

2) The only thing that I can think that may be wrong in the BIOS is the graphics are set to PCI instead of AGP (this assuming you have an AGP card - see below**). This would suggest you have an ON-BOARD graphics slot. Check the back of the PC, if there is another blue 15-pin VGA connected elsewhere, connect it and see if you get a display. Once you do - go into BIOS and set graphics display = AGP, then swap the cable over again.

3) The card is not inserted correctly. Take it out and reseat it. If this doesn't work I would suggest the card is faulty. It happens all the time.


**AGP is a slot that is coloured brown. The PCI slots are white. You will only have one AGP slot, but many PCI. They are about the same size. AGP is faster than PCI. If you have on-board graphics (no extra graphics card) then this is also called a PCI as it is using the PCI bus (and limited to PCI speed).

HTH - get back to us with results.

[celticfemale]

I've tried all that you have said with nothing happening yet lol.I know what the matter is though.I clicked for the pc to boot from the board and with no agp it can't.I have looked inside infact it's laying open right now lol but can't seem to see "cpu" I'm no dummy at this it just has my brained fried lol.
Anyone know how I can boot to get into bios or know of where to look for a pic even so I can try resetting the cpu?.It's about th only thing left I can think of to do.
Thanks for all suggestions though

[Sandra]

Hi Amber, I dont understand the "Boot from the board"  
I have never seen that option.
Did you use the clear CMOS jumper as that should reset it to the default setting ?

[celticfemale]

Hi Sandra again lol, I havent been able to try your suggestion as I can see the thing on the mother board!.I forget what it said Sandra that I clicked it happened so quickly I just caught sight of board lol.There are a set of jumpers next to the battery which I took out then put back in but to no avail:(

[Sandra]

Can you give us some/any information about the pc Amber please ?
Motherboard make and model, CPU, any cards installed and the OS etc  

[celticfemale]

so sorry for the delay Sandra(had to feed then find somewhere to tie the son up )lol.Here goes this is what I know so far Sandra:
Intel Pentium lll
AMD K6/2 500 mhz cpu
128 meg ram
10 gig hard drive
atx motherboard
psu * usb * serial * ps2 * cd rom * floppy/ modem
running win98 2nd edition.

your's hopefully
AmberZ

[Sandra]

Intel Pentium lll
AMD K6/2 500 mhz cpu

Youve confused me and no doubt a lot of others now even more Amber  

Its either an INTEL or an AMD cant be both  

I was really hoping that you knew which motherboard it was, ATX is the type of board not the actual make.
Can you see anything written on the board itself, ie MSI or GIGABYTE or something like that and some numbers, they are usually quite easy to see  

[Simon]

Can you not plug the monitor into the old onboard graphics port to get a picture?

Sorry if that's barking up the wrong tree.  

[celticfemale]

R284R137 RP20
CE23
CE21
CE20

CB41
CB39

IDE1

R43

M101
191 UNDER IT

This any good Sandra?

[Sandra]

I'm afraid that none of that helps to identify the motherboard Amber.
I think you are looking at some very small print to find those numbers and letters.
The manufacturers name is usually a reasonable size.
The reason I would like it identifying is so that I can check where the clear cmos jumper is so that you can make sure that you have got the correct one.
When you said you moved it and replaced it did you mean you moved it from connecting pins 2 and 3 to connect pins 1 and 2 and then back, as thats the correct procedure.
Just removing and replacing it wont change anything  

[ketamininja]

I think you have some terms mixed up  

no worries: can oyu clear this up for me:

what were you doing before it went off?
You were in the BIOS? - that means there was a screen in front of you with various options. Depending on the make of your PC or mainboard, it may have been a grey or blue screen traditionally.
The BIOS is sometimes referred to as the CMOS. Its simply a set of instructions that are held in a chip, and the battery makes the chip remember them. So IN the BIOS means in the setup menu.

-Or were you doing something in the PC case (apart from putting in the AGP card)

You changed something from AGP to "on the motherboard"? It should only have an option from AGP to PCI. If you did "clear the bios" correctly (with your jumper change) then that should put everything back to defaults - you should see a picture.

You put an AGP card in the PC.
Did you take anything out - ie swap a PCI card or another AGP with this new one? If so, pop it back in, clear BIOS and try again! ALWAYS MAKE SURE CABLES ARE CONNECTED CORRECTLY!

If you did not remove anything, then the monitor MUST be able to plug into the port on the motherboard, as well as the new AGP. Remove the AGP and clear BIOS, then make sure the monitor is plugged to the motherboard port.

If all that fails (assuming you are CLEARING THE BIOS correctly) then you have a hardware problem of some sorts.

There are BIG agp cards out there (speed terms). Some motherboards cannot support them. It could draw too much power, and may kill ANY part of your PC. Maybe the hard drive is dead. Don't want to worry you, but I would MAKE SURE you are clearing the bios correctly!!  



on another note, I'm off on holiday to portugal... so i'll see you guys in two weeks!!  

hope you get the problem resolved!

[Reno]

if the battery isn't soldered in you can take a flathead screw driver and stick in there touching both peices of metal in the batter holder for 30 seconds or so and successfully reset the bios.

Sometimes thats easier than finding the reset jumper if you aren't technically inclined

[Simon]

if the battery isn't soldered in you can take a flathead screw driver and stick in there touching both peices of metal in the batter holder for 30 seconds or so and successfully reset the bios.

Sometimes thats easier than finding the reset jumper if you aren't technically inclined

To be honest, I wouldn't advise anyone who isn't technically inclined to poke a screwdriver anywhere near[/b] their Motherboard!    It may well be a method that works, but get someone who knows what they're doing to do it for you.