PC help please - no image after bootup

[ToonTech]

i recently had a virus on my pc, which appeared to have had such an affect that i could see no image on my screen. I think the virus had messed with my resolution and as i used a tv monitor rather than a proper tft i thought this might be the problem.
i borrowed my bro's tft and hey presto, i have an image, decided it was time to clear up the system so i formatted both drives i have installed. after i re-installed winxp i decided to install the motherboard and graphics drivers then rebooted as instructed by installation.

now the image has gone again, i cannot get an image on either my tv monitor or the tft screen.
anyone think what the problem might be? Graphics card? memory?
can a virus kill hardware? i find it a coincidence this has occurred at the time of having a virus.

 

[deanj20]

Hi ToonTech.

i borrowed my bro's tft and hey presto, i have an image, decided it was time to clear up the system so i formatted both drives i have installed. after i re-installed winxp i decided to install the motherboard and graphics drivers then rebooted as instructed by installation.

now the image has gone again, i cannot get an image on either my tv monitor or the tft screen.

How far do you get before you don't have an image? Do you have an image in safe mode? It sounds to me like you reinstalled using the on-board card, installed the drivers for your graphics card, and are now trying to use that and have no image? If that is the case, perhaps the computer is still using the on board graphics.

If somehow you've installed XP without using the graphics card on that computer, and now you have no image at all (on boot up, etc) then I would try pulling the graphics card out and puting it back in again to secure a good connection. I know it sounds crazy, but it's worked for me more than once.

Or have you been using the same card all along and are now trying to install the correct driver for the card instead of the windows default driver? In that case, perhaps you've installed a bad driver? I would download the latest driver from the manufacturer's website.

I have heard that a virus can kill hardware, but I've never seen it in twelve years experience repairing computers and I find it highly unlikely, especially a graphics card. It sounds to me like you've got either driver issues, configuration issues or both.

Please post back - I'm interested in getting to the bottom of this!

 

[ToonTech]

OK, problem solved, miraculously solving itself.
bit more background in response to the reply, there was absolutely no image at all, turn on PC, then nothing. seemed as if the graphics card was fried and the motherboard has no on-board graphics.

the only thing i did was to clean dust away from the card and cpu fan, not sure if that helped but clutching at straws really.

just happy its solved with no additional cost to me.