Desktop Will Not Display Image

Origin Saint

Origin Saint

Well-Known Member
Hey guys, I need help fixing this computer I got from my girlfriends parents so that I can use it. It is a Dell Dimension 4600 with a big, old Dell 17" LCD monitor. When they gave it to me they said they took it to a repairman and he said it was stuck in a infinite loop. I have plugged the tower and monitor in and turned both on, but the monitor wont display anything until I press a button on it and then it give me the message "MONITOR IS IN POWER SAVE MODE ACTIVATE USING PC." I've clicked every combination of mouse buttons and punched every key on the keyboard and still no response. The hard drive light on the tower blips on and off but is never on for more than a second or less. Any help here would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
 
VGA cable failiure?

take a look at the pins of the VGA cable from the monitor to the pc. Maybe there are pins broken which causes you wont get it in.
 
hmmm

on both sides?

hmm then maybe your graphics on your computer are defect or the graphics card doesnt get enough power maybe there is a PCI connector loose(it might be that you don't have one) or the card is anyway damaged...

maybe any other CF user knows any recommendations?:)
 
Well the other end of the VGA cable is attached to the back of the monitor permanently, there is no pins on it. I do know all of the internals are factory. Meaning, the graphics card is actually an integrated graphics card; Intel Extreme Graphics 2.
 
If its in a boot loop or I should say was... then its hardware related. Could be bad harddrive. Dells usually don't have post beeps so can't tell if the system is even posting. Does it have a dedicated video card or onboard video?
 
Lmao, nevermind. I had it plugged into the wrong VGA port. Didn't even notice the oter one. Thanks for your help.
 
If you have 2 vga ports then most likely you have an onboard video and a dedicated card.
 
If you go into device manager, look under display adapter and you'll see what hardware you have.
 
Well that's an issue, because I need a Windows XP Home Edition SP2 disk and I don't have one. So I'll have to wait a while.
 
Most likely its a failing hard drive and you need to test it for errors. Do this....Upon bootup, press the f8 key to get into the safe mode options. Arrow down to "disable automatic restart on error" and hit enter. The machine will now try to bootup again. This time it won't restart but it should give you a blue screen and most likely it will say "unmountable boot volume" at the top. If so, then you have errors on the drive and need to run the drive diagnostic from the manufacturer.
 
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