7 Tips to What to Do if the Computer Turns On But Displays Nothing

1. Test Your Monitor. Before you begin more complicated and time-consuming troubleshooting with the rest of your computer, make sure your monitor is working properly.

With the monitor disconnected from your computer, turn it on and off. If the display shows diagnostic information of any kind, you know the display is powered and is capable of displaying content.

2.Verify that your PC has completely restarted and is powering up from a completely powered off state.

A computer may appear to "not be on" when actually it's just having problems resuming from either the Standby/Sleep or Hibernate power saving mode in Windows.

Note: Power off your computer while in a power saving mode by holding the power button down for 3 to 5 seconds. After the power is completely off, turn on your PC and test to see if it will boot normally.

3. Troubleshoot the cause of the beep code if you're lucky enough to get one. A beep code will give you a very good idea of exactly where to look for the cause of your computer turning off.

4. Clear the CMOS. Clearing the BIOS memory on your motherboard will return the BIOS settings to their factory default levels. A BIOS misconfiguration could be why your PC won't start up all the way.

Important: If clearing the CMOS does fix your problem, make sure any changes you make in BIOS are completed one at a time so if the problem returns, you'll know which change caused your issue.

5. Verify that the power supply voltage switch is set correctly. If the input voltage for the power supply isn't correct then your computer might not turn on completely.

There's a good possibility that your PC wouldn't power on at all if this switch is wrong, but an incorrect power supply voltage might also prevent your computer from starting properly in this way, too.

6.Reseat everything possible inside your PC.

Reseating will reestablish the various connections inside your computer and is very often a "magic" fix to problems like this one.

Tip: Verify that all the cables are connected correctly. For example, if the onboard video card has been disabled, plugging a VGA cable into it will result in nothing on the monitor even if the computer is powered on. In this case, you'd want to plug the VGA cable into the correct video card.

Try reseating the following components and then test if your computer displays something on screen:

• Reseat all internal data and power cables
• Reseat the memory modules
• Reseat any expansion cards

7. Reseat the CPU only if you suspect that it might have come loose or might not have been installed properly.

Note: We address this component separately only because the chance of a CPU coming loose is very slim and because installing one is a sensitive task.