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Dell XPS 420 turns on and all sounds fine but no picture appears??????
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I have a Dell XPS 420 running Windows 7 I was using it today just about to play a game the game was loading then suddenly the screen went blank. So I just thought that it had just frozen so I turned it off left it for a second then turned it back on again. It all sounded like it was loading fine but still no picture on the screen. I have checked the monitor and it is working fine so I opened up the computer and tried to start it again to see if I could see or hear any problems all looked fine the fan on the graphics card was working fine from what I could tell. The graphics card is the only reason I could think of for it not working. Any help would be great.
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Does it have the Nvidia 8800 GT card?
First thing to try would be to connect the lead to the other DVI connector.
Failing that, try a different lead.
I'm presuming you don't even see the BIOS screens?
If you can see these, then you could try booting from a Windows recovery CD/DVD or a Linux live CD/DVD/USB, just to see if you get a picture.
Failing all that, it's a case of opening it up and fitting a different graphics card.
do you still have the original card you swapped out?
It should take any PCI-Express card, but I guess the limiting factor is the relatively low powered power supply unit.
Not sure what the one in yours is, but some say 375w and some 425w.
Should be plenty for any medium powered card though.
Actually the PSU is something else to be considered as a possible fault.
Even if everything appears to be running OK, it might be that one of the power connectors to the card has come loose?
Ahhh good point .... My dads dell done something similar the other week but his graphics card was fine thru the bios it wasn't until he hit the windows login that it went funny
Have look on the back for a VGA port on the motherboard, if it's their then plug monitor in to it and pull the pci-e card, bios should change over automatically to the on board given that the pci-e is no longer there
However from the pictures I've seen on the Dell website I can't see any sign of an on-board graphics connector. So that option might not be available.
Oh dear.
Perhaps there's something wrong with the PCI-Express slot on the motherboard, or the connections to the card from the power supply?
Have the PC plugged into the mains but turn off the mains at the socket, the mains lead is being used as an earth connection not to supply power for this procedure. Open the case and locate the memory module(s).
Touch a metal part of the case to discharge any static on your body. Remove the memory module(s) and then put them back in their slots. Sounds odd but you'd be surprised how often that cures some problems.
Power up the PC and see what if any effect that has had.
Some Dell PCs I've worked on have four slots in two pairs, one pair coloured black and one pair white. Often just one pair of slots has memory modules installed. On a couple of machines I've fixed they simply refused to boot until I swapped the memory modules into the unused slots (eg from the black to the white pair). Not sure if your PC is like this but could be worth a punt if it is.
The other test to try is to unplug as much as possible from the motherboard, disk drives etc, and see if the PC at least displays the start up screen. If it does then something you have unplugged is preventing it working.
To work out what means plugging stuff back in one at a time till it stops working. Things can get a little complicated if it's a PSU load issue as it might be the number of things plugged in rather than any one device that is causing the issue. That can be a pain in the wotsits to work out!
At least though it should power the PC and indicate one way or the other if the original PSU is OK
But always check before buying a replacement PSU for any Dell