Please Help !!

My freind's PC crahed he gave me the machine to have a look at I know very little about PC's but a bit more than him so I said I'd have a look, however I am puzzled I took his base unit home with me and plugged it in to my monitor and keyboard etc I powered the machine the machine powers however the monitor just flashes as if there is no input I know the monitor works as it works fine with my PC, I am puzzled as to what to do with this machine as if I can't even see this BIOS or anything so how do I s#even start to sort the machine out:!!! Is it my monitor is not compatiable something stupid like that ??? Please if anyone has any suggestions i'd be really gratefull

 

Okay we'll need the Specs (what's in the computer...) before we can really start to help you out...

 

Im not really sure of the specs it's quite a modern PC, I think he bought it last year so.......... the graphics card is on board, however I had a spare graphics card laying around from an old machine so I put that in the expansion slots but that didnt work either !!!!!

 

Try resetting the CMOS, there should be a jumper on the motherboard for it (would help if you had a manual, i doubt you'll find it without it although it's usually near the battery) if you can't find the jumper then take the battery out for 15mins, leave it for longer if you want to be sure, then put the bettery in and try again and let us know what happens

 

Do you think that should do it ?

This is a really stupid question but what does the battery look like ?

 

Circular and silver, in a plastic holder on the motherboard...like one of those watch batteries...flat and round

 

that brilliant I'll give it a go thanks very much

 

Hope it works, if not then get back to us and we'll see what we can do...others will be able to offer more help...

 

thanks very much