[dmspen]

My Dell XPS 9000 went out the other day. While switching users the screen went black. Nothing seems to bring it back. When booting there is no indication (video) on the screen of POST activitiy. Eventually there is a black color shift on the screen and the mouse cursor appears.

I can access my hard drive through another networked PC so the drive seems to be OK.

Once on boot I got a 5 tones, up and down in pitch, followed by 3 sets of 2 beeps. Can't find that response anywhere.

I reseated everything inside the PC but didn't help.

I tried to boot up in Safe Mode but haven't been able to do that yet. When powering up, there seems to be a lot of hard drive activity before it settles down- seems to be about 3 or 4 minutes.

It's a Dell XPS 9100, Win 7, NVidia GT 220 video card. I've thought about removing the video card and booting, but don't know if the PC will default to the onboard graphics.

Any thoughts?

 

[dennisj00]

Remove the video card and reboot, it should default to onboard.

 

[The Merg]

Remove the video card and reboot, it should default to onboard.

Yup. First trouble-shooting step...

- Merg

 

[dmspen]

We went on a weeks vacation. I turned on the PC when we got home. As usual, there's no video of any type and then BOOM, the logon screen is there.

I'm leaving it on forever. Or at least until the next time it goes...

I'll try the video card removal next black screen.

 

[dennisj00]

Sounds like just a removal / reinsertion may help clean the contacts.

 

[dmspen]

I did open the case and make sure all cards and connectors were seated OK. Maybe a complete removal and install would help.

 

[Guest]

Well i was stuck up wit the same problem no solution helped out. Then i uninstalled all the softwares and the set up and then installed it again. And thus it worked well, was unable to sort out the trouble and do not know why it happens.

 

[dmspen]

Video problems are the worst because you can't see what to troubleshoot!