I have an HP Pavilion 500 desktop that I rarely use, maybe once a week, but store a lot of sentimental things like pictures on. The last time I used it it functioned fine and I had no problems, a few days ago I turn it on and the monitor doesn't do anything, there is nothing at all on the screen, it appears dead, and there is no beeping, but the computer powers up, the green lights to the cd/dvd/floppy drives all light up and the fans are running.

First thing I think is that the monitor is dead. I unplug the monitor and try plugging it up again but then the monitor turns on and displays: "Please check video cable connection" in a small blue box. To further inspect the monitor I transport the computer to my uncle's house and hook the monitor up to his computer and it works just fine on his computer.

So then I suspect maybe its the video card? And i haven't tested this. But the strange thing is? My mouse is completely dead, and the computer doesn't seem to either be picking up the speakers or there is no sound other then the hissing of fans coming from it and it only picks up the keyboard when I plug it in for about a second..the lights turn on but then when I try to put capslock on...no lights.

Could it be the PSU? But then why it is turning on and the fans running if it is the PSU?

I took it apart and cleaned the dusty fans, but over all it wasn't terribly dusty and it still behaving the same.

I'm confused, does anyone have any idea what could be the problem?

First off the PSU can always give a minimal voltage to power fans and LED's but not enough to properly start a system.

Does the board have on-board VGA? (A monitor port on the motherboard)?

If so have you tried plugging the monitor in here?

Another basic test is to remove all the RAM and power on.

You should definitely get BEEPS now.

If so try reseating your RAM one stick at a time. If at first this does not succeed try another slot and or another stick.

If you get no BEEPS with no RAM installed then you are facing more complex issues. But try the above and let us know how it goes.

There didn't seem to be a monitor port on the motherboard but i did remove the Ram and power on and there were beeps. After reseating the Ram I repowered the computer and the monitor flashed on the blue start up page that offered F1 Setup or F10 System Recovery. F10 is an option that it does not allow..it resumed and this is what it gave me...

503M System Ram passed
512 K cache SRam passed
system bios shadowed
video bios shadowed


Then there was at the bottom...

Error
0200: Failure Fixed Disk 0

Unfortunately that error usually indicates hard drive failure.

Although it might also be a failure to locate and or a failure to boot.

I would go onto Setup and check the BOOT tab. See if the drive is even recognized here in any aspect. Check thru all the sub-menus.

In a worse case scenario you can probably slave this drive on another desktop in an attempt to extract data as long as it is not a mechanical breakdown.