pc's start up, and nothing shows up on the monitor

hi all, i have 2 pc's (a p2 450 and a p3 888), that won't boot up, the fans go on, the lights too, but nothing happens on the screen.....my knowledge is not that great, but after reading a bunch of stuff online, if it doesn't reach post and the lights go on, it's either the power supply or the motherboard....b4 i go out and buy 2 power supplies, any way i could know wether it's the psu or the motherboard?
thanx

do you not get any beeps at all or just one beep? Do they use onboard graphics or a PCI/AGP graphics card?

until I know its hard to guess the problem

computer

I built a friend a Slot P3 500 and his does that every so often and fix is to pull CPU and reseat it (seems gravity gets better of it after a bit). I built the P3 from all sorts of spare parts so does not have correct P3 cartridge mount (he got it for free so no complaints from him).

If you have not already pulled and reseated things, I would recommend pull and reseat CPU (if slot CPU) the RAM and Video card as well.

In addition, if computers sat for years and had cheap CMOS batteries maybe they are dead (although highly unlikely the problem easy to check while PCs open reseating things)?

=/

Are you sure you just didn't set your refresh rate or resolution too high or something? x_X

Hello all,
I am having a similar problem. I have a P4 2.6, 256 Geforce card, 1GB DDR ram, and a Mach speed MB. I recently installed a DVD burner. After installation I copied a DVD and everything worked fine for about an hour. Then, all of the sudden the computer went to restart itself and when it came back on there was no display on the monitor. THinking it could be the MB I purchased a new one..... Not the problem. I get the same thing with the new one. I reseated all of my stuff. I get CPU fan power, and lights. The one thing I did notice was that the keyboard and mouse don't initialize. (no num lock key lights or anything) I am thinking it might be the processor. WHen I reseated the processor I noticed a lot of black gunk on it. I am not very familliar with processors so this might just be dust that got caked on. Anyway, I wanted to shoot the peeps with the brians before I go and spend the money on a new proc. Anyone got anything on that???

Thanks in advance,
WEED

I have brians?!?!?

the black gunk, if it was under the heatsink/fan was probably the thermal conductive paste.

do the lights on the motherboard (a power LED) light or the light on the front of the system or any fans turn on?

most likely a PSU problem.

yeh, mine did this but i knew what it was instantly, maybe not the same solution for you, but what i did was put a prescott into a computer that didnt suport prescotts, and the same thing happened, so obviousely its something to do with the cpu not being.. turned on, i spose, maybe the cpu power cords, or mobo power cords arnt pluged in correctly, or maybe just the cpu not allingning properly.