signal not detected

[osmosis21]

Hi...I am running an emachines desktop with XP sp2  with the radeon allinwonder 9600 with two monitors.   I've had this set up for a year.   This morning I was surfing the net and I was trying to play music and I wasn't getting any sound.   I rebooted the computer and both monitors were blank (it said briefly that signal was not detected).   The computer sounded like it booted up fine.

I have no idea how to trouble shoot on that computer with out being able to see anything on the monitors.

I checked all the cords and they seemed plugged in fine.  
How can I tell if my video card is shot?    Could it be anything other than the video card?....thanks in advance for any help.

[IT-Guy]

Can you be a little more descriptive?  Can you POST?  Can you get to the BIOS? How bout using just one monitor?  Is the power led lit on the monitors?

[osmosis21]

Im not sure what POST means.    THe led is lit on the monitors in amber (the because there is no signal).   I'm not getting a signal to the monitors even if I only plug in one.   The monitors are working fine (checked it on the other computer).    The computer seems to be booting up, and I'm sure I can get into the bios, but I can't see anything on the monitor, so that doesnt really help.

[IT-Guy]

I'm not sure if this is the issue... but sometimes if the refresh rate goes out of sync it will do something similar... Try rebooting and hit the F8 key right after you start it up.. hit it continuously since you can't see what it's doing.  What I meant by POST is.. can you see anything at all when you restart the pc?  Is there a black screen which shows the memory count or the hard disk detection?  Anything?  Or does the monitor remain black even at first boot?

Have you shutdown and reseated the video card?

[osmosis21]

btw thanks for the help I appreciate it.

So the monitor remains completely blank at start up....I've tried reseating the video card.....still no go.....the F8 trick doesn't work.

[osmosis21]

so in playing a bit more, it seems that its not fulling rebooting and the lights that are on the keyboard don;t light up....Does that mean its the motherboard?

[osmosis21]

Have been playing around more and can get a temporary signal to the monitors, and can get into bios, and get the prompt to start in safe mode, but when I enter that the monitors lose the signal and go blank.    So I cant start windows.   Any suggestions?

[IT-Guy]

If you can get the F8 prompts.. it's not safe mode you need.. it's VGA mode.  Then when you go into windows.. reset the refresh rate to 60hz and 1024 x 768