This is a friends system....i know compaqs sucks. The computer was working fine last night and was turned off. This morning, the computer would not boot. No new programs were installed since the last shutdown. I can power up the system and get the hard drives to spin up but the monitor never goes on (the light remains orange). I have tried several things so far: 1. Installed the HD from this computer on a second machine and scanned for a virus (used latest norton virus defs) 2. Tried a different monitor. (figured it might be the cable) 3. Tried intalling a PCI VGA card to bypass the onboard video (can not get into the bios to disable onboard video) 4. Tried resetting the CMOS. So far, nothing has worked... From my understanding, the computer is not getting the VGA signal so its not continuing with the boot. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks, Rob

Taking the presumption that the hard drives are accessed to the point of about a minute and hence should have loaded windows, the problem is probably your monitor itself. If you mean that you can simply hear the initial access noise we all hear at power on, but do not think they are accessed any further, then the problem is likely to be other hardware or memory. The BIOS will not continue to load if any piece of hardware is incorrectly inserted or say, might have bit the dust. My advice if this appears to be the case, is to unattach everything and try each from the beginning one at a time.

The boot stops (no beeps) becuase it is not picking up a VGA signal. The monitor is not bad.

It's my believe that when there is no VGA signal, or any other "critical" hardware error there are allways a specific series of beeps. Have you unplugged both the system and monitor power cord for a couple of minutes, and then plugged them back in? Believe it or not it some times does the trick. Greetz from The Netherlands, The Count

I have tried that also. You are correct about the VGA signal not making a difference. The computer is hanging up somewhere very early in the boot. It is happening so early that the VGA never gets initalized to turn on. The hard disks spin up and then nothing happens at all. I get no beeps or anything to indicate the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to try next?

If the computer has an internal modem, take that out and try rebooting. Larry

Weirdly enoug, my brother had the same problem with his computer. Turned out to be a burned out power supply. It was somehow getting enough power to get the hd turning, but that was it. I started unplugging things and then noticed how quiet everything was. The power supply's fan was frozen. Put in a new power supply and now everything is fine. Philippe