# 2 PC's have black screens - coincidence?



## Gary Compton (Jul 10, 2012)

As well as my laptop which is my main workhorse I have 2 pc's. Both have conked out after 8-9 years of use. Is this a coincidence?

If it was a virus, surely my laptop would have it.

Any ideas welcome (Mosaix help)


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## mosaix (Jul 10, 2012)

You should be able to attach each screen in turn to your laptop and see if they work. If not - hard luck.

Talking of coincidences, my daughters desktop packed up a few weeks ago. She has a laptop so didn't really mind. She asked me if I wanted to salvage any bits, so I recovered the hard disk and screen and the rest went to the tip.

I brought them home and as I walked through the door my wife said "my screen's gone blank". And so it had, it was a moments work to attach the new screen.


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## Gary Compton (Jul 10, 2012)

I only had the 1 screen. 

It went off while it was connected to the 1st PC so I connected the second which worked for a bit. Then it went off. 

I have a second screen which I tried to no avail so it seems it is the PC's. I also tried a different cable. No luck


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## mosaix (Jul 10, 2012)

Seems a bit odd, Gary. I would suggest running a virus checker, but without a screen... 

I suppose if you have the original windows CD you could try booting up off that (supposedly it would be virus free) and see if the display works then.


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## Gary Compton (Jul 10, 2012)

It just so happens that both pc's have a £3500 design software with a dongal on the old style printer port. If I can, I need to get going without a re-install as I no longer have the software!


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## mosaix (Jul 10, 2012)

Gary Compton said:


> It just so happens that both pc's have a £3500 design software with a dongal on the old style printer port. If I can, I need to get going without a re-install as I no longer have the software!



Not a re-install at this stage, Gary. Just try a boot up off the CD as a starting point to see if the monitor displays anything. 

At least you'd know here you stand then.


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## Gary Compton (Jul 10, 2012)

I havent got the disks. They are so old. Can you do it any other way?


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## Metryq (Jul 11, 2012)

Gary Compton said:


> I only had the 1 screen.
> 
> It went off while it was connected to the 1st PC so I connected the second which worked for a bit. Then it went off.
> 
> I have a second screen which I tried to no avail so it seems it is the PC's. I also tried a different cable. No luck



I'm confused—did you have two workstations that both went dark, or were you using one that went dark, then borrowed the monitor from the other workstation? The key to any troubleshooting is to isolate the problem.

1. Establish that the monitors are good by hooking them up to the laptop and letting them run for a long time. If the monitors don't go dark on the laptop, then you can consider them cleared. If they DO go dark while connected to the laptop (but the laptop's own screen is still good), then the monitor(s) may have an intermittent problem.

2. Assuming the monitors pass their test, can you get an image by hooking one of the monitors back up to a desktop computer? If a desktop computer gives you an image for several minutes, then blacks out, you may have a problem with the video card or perhaps the motherboard—and this assumes the computer shows some indication that it is still running (power lights, fan noise from the power supply, etc.) 

Assuming the workstations reboot and show an image after being shut off for a while, there is one other thing you can do to check for thermal intermittents: While you can see what you are doing, turn on Remote Desktop or VNC. Then if the monitor blacks out again, see if you can reach the workstation by RD or VNC. If you can, this further isolates the problem to the video card.

Good luck.


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