No Video signal

[samseattle]

Good Morning,
I am trying to help a friend who has a problem with his Gateway PC (Windows XP Home). He tried adding some RAM to this computer and when he rebooted all the computer did was beep three times.  I figure that the RAM was incompatible with the RAM already there so we took out the new RAM and now when we reboot, there is no video. I have tried a new video card (that I know works) nothing. I think it may be a BIOS problem, but cannot access the BIOS. Rebooting holding (DEL) (F1) (F2) (F8) (F9) Ctrl+Alt=Esc)  nothing, I am sorry I do not have much info on the PC, as I said it is not mine. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Sam

[DaveLembke]

Make sure pins were not crushed in the Ram upgrade, make sure it is clean in the slots, no dust bunnys etc jammed in there.

No video means no post and the motherboard may be hosed. Any static shocks when swapping Ram? A discharge of static could kill it.

If you are in a cold dry environment, its the season for Static Discharge!

Dave

[samseattle]

Thanks Dave,
Cold and dry, well thats not Seattle, I don't think the motherboard is fried, when I pull all the memory out the PC will beep and there is a led lit on the board. Is there a way of checking the motherboard?  The memory chip looks OK and the slots are clean, I blew out a fair amount of dust out of the machine though.

[DaveLembke]

There is a post card that you can buy like this to run a diagnostic on it. http://www.elstonsystems.com/prod/pc_post_diagnostic_card.html   

I have one of these without the ISA feature, and many high end mb's come with this feature like my gaming system with a Fatal1ty socket 775 motherboard.

There are many makers of post cards out there. I got mine through PC Connection a ways back and it diagnosed a northbridge problem with a motherboard.

The one I have is this one. http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?Sku=195001