Hi. My friends computer wont start at all. When we press the power button, all that happens is the monitor stays black, nothing pops up at any time. No BIOS settings, No setup, No screen at all. It just stays black, and my monitors Standby light just blinks. The CPU fan works and the CD Drive opens and closes, and everything seems to be working. RAM is in, Hard drive is connected and i reformated it with my computer. And the screen still doesnt come up. Anything to help? I dont know the specs because its not mine, but basic is that its a AMD something, it has 512MB of ram. And 60 Gig hard drive. But the fans work on the CPU so idk what it is, ive removed the battery on the mobo i think ive tried everything i know. Please help? And i respond quick! i will be refrehsing this all day long until its fixed, so if you reply, check back within a couple minutes.

If you boot without any RAM does it beep?

Yes, it beeps, LONG, then stops and pauses for lil bit, then LONG then pause, the LONG, until i turn the power off

Good. That is what it should do.

The next suspect is the graphics card. Try re-seating it. If still no go try a different card.

If the motherboard has on-board VGA you might try that as well.

Nope, no video card, I tried plugging in mine, nothing. So then i tried onboard, nothing.

Does the monitor LED turn on?

Do you get any message such as: "No Signal Input"?

Do you have another monitor to try?

Its not the monitor because he brought his computer over here, and im using the same monitor.

If you haven't already done so, you need a "back to basics" test. Unplug / disconnect / remove anything that's not essential to boot the PC. Any AGP, PCI or ISA devices should come out. Disconnect the power and data cables to the hard drives, CD/DVD drives and floppy drive. If you have more than one memory module, remove the others.

With one RAM module, a CPU (and fan) and the on-board graphics connected, it should give an output to the screen. If it doesn't, plug the graphics card back in again and connect the monitor to that - then try to boot again.

If the system still doesn't show anything on screen, then you can conclude that the system has a faulty case, PSU, processor or RAM.

Let us know how you get on

Okay. I disconnected everything, and it didnt show anything on the screen. RAM should be fine, because ive tested with mine that works. PSU idk.. Faulty case means? and im guessing its the processor.

Assuming that all of the components are fitted correctly (e.g. you have no earthing problems), then ignore my comment about the case. I was thinking of a dodgy power button on the front of the case but you've said that the fans spin up, which means that there is power there.

The power supply and processor are generally equally straightforward to swap out, though it's normally easier to lay your hands on a compatible PSU to try for 5 minutes.