Old Compaq turns on but no video output

[Underi]

My parents had an old Compaq back in the early 2000s that I used to play games with. It had been lying around for quite some time in our storage room and today I thought I'd repurpose the case and make it into a sleeper build by taking out the old components and putting in new.

 

Just now I tried turning it on and accessing BIOS, only to realize that my Philips monitor was telling me that there is no video signal and it will go into sleep mode. I tried turning it on and off again and reset CMOS but neither of those helped.

The Compaq has an external GPU with a VGA port, S-VID out and two composite connectors, also two USB-A's and a longer yellow serial port..

I remember turning it on and accessing Windows XP a couple of years back. It COULD be an another PC, but I think it was this one.

I used an old Nokia CRT monitor back then with VGA connection too, so I took it out and tried that too. Same thing, no video.

The PC turns on fine and probably even goes into whatever OS is in one of those two HDDs the computer has eaten. They make a horrible sound, but the storage LED flashes for a while when turning the PC on.

 

How should I troubleshoot this? The motherboard has a male serial connector. There is also a purple long female serial port. Sadly we don't have cables like that and presumably have only used VGA since the Nokia monitor comes with one soldered in.

 

Another thing that I'm interested in is how expensive this PC presumably was back then and how powerful it was. The GPU doesn't seem to be anything great, but the case is a Compaq Outside full-tower and the PC has akasa sound cancellation foam inside. Seems like a higher end PC. I'd like to boot into a live usb to check the specifications of this machine for more accurate estimations. The PSU is also an "Enermax model EG465AX-VE" that says it's total power is 433W.

EDIT: The two HDDs inside are a 61.5GB 7200RPM IBM Deskstar and a 164.7GB 7200RPM IBM Deskstar and are from 2002

https://imgur.com/a/9nLx1dQ

[grss1982]

24 minutes ago, Underi said:

My parents had an old Compaq back in the early 2000s that I used to play games with. It had been lying around for quite some time in our storage room and today I thought I'd repurpose the case and make it into a sleeper build by taking out the old components and putting in new.

 

Just now I tried turning it on and accessing BIOS, only to realize that my Philips monitor was telling me that there is no video signal and it will go into sleep mode. I tried turning it on and off again and reset CMOS but neither of those helped.

The Compaq has an external GPU with a VGA port, S-VID out and two composite connectors, also two USB-A's and a longer yellow serial port..

I remember turning it on and accessing Windows XP a couple of years back. It COULD be an another PC, but I think it was this one.

I used an old Nokia CRT monitor back then with VGA connection too, so I took it out and tried that too. Same thing, no video.

The PC turns on fine and probably even goes into whatever OS is in one of those two HDDs the computer has eaten. They make a horrible sound, but the storage LED flashes for a while when turning the PC on.

 

How should I troubleshoot this? The motherboard has a male serial connector. There is also a purple long female serial port. Sadly we don't have cables like that and presumably have only used VGA since the Nokia monitor comes with one soldered in.

 

Another thing that I'm interested in is how expensive this PC presumably was back then and how powerful it was. The GPU doesn't seem to be anything great, but the case is a Compaq Outside full-tower and the PC has akasa sound cancellation foam inside. Seems like a higher end PC. I'd like to boot into a live usb to check the specifications of this machine for more accurate estimations. The PSU is also an "Enermax model EG465AX-VE" that says it's total power is 433W.

 

https://imgur.com/a/9nLx1dQ

That's not a Compaq tower.  That's a custom built-PC using an old school ANTEC SX-635 case.

 

I don't see the motherboard model but from the location of the 2 SATA ports and the controller for it plus the orientation of the Northbridge heatsink this is probably an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280&bih=646&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=R_A4XObMMMz6-QaPjLioAQ&q=ASUS+A7N8X+Deluxe&oq=ASUS+A7N8X+Deluxe&gs_l=img.3..0j0i24.34335.34335..34877...0.0..0.96.96.1......0....2j1..gws-wiz-img.F75DzHwEXqQ

 

That motherboard used AGP for video and has no built-in video. So either use another AGP card or an older PCI (Not PCIE) video card in order to determine if there's still video output.

 

You can also try removing the AGP video card, cleaning the contacts with an eraser and at the same time blow some canned air on the AGP slot.  Just to make sure it's not the dust that's causing poor contact between the card and the AGP slot.

 

LTT's Ultimate Sleeper Build used the same case, IIRC:

https://www.google.com/search?q=ltt+ultimate+sleeper+build&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis-O_dvubfAhVT7WEKHUhfAscQ_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=646

[VoyexTech]

Like GRSS said that is a custom computer not a Compaq. Compaq merged with HP in 2001 and didn't produce any desktop computers during that time they only released the Ipaq. By the time HP started producing Compaqs the case design had changed dramatically. 

[Underi]

12 hours ago, grss1982 said:

That's not a Compaq tower.  That's a custom built-PC using an old school ANTEC SX-635 case.

Yeah I've been reading about the PC. Indeed, it is an Asus A7N8X Deluxe with a AMD Athlon 2400+ and ATI R6 graphics card rocking a whopping 1GB of ram. I had no idea it was custom built though, but my parents had a friend that knew about computers a lot so it was presumably him.

 

I've taken the PC apart now but an another problem I have with this thing now is that there are no holes for case fans. One fan was attached to the back with some kind of a plastic clip and there are two more on the front of the case and I'm wondering if it's possible to get these plastic adapters anywhere. I thought I'd take a look at LTTs sleeper build and noticed that the case indeed looks very similar. Sadly they didn't even use normal fans but a custom-loop so the video wasn't of much help.

Can these "adapters" be bought from ebay?

 

[grss1982]

On 1/12/2019 at 3:53 PM, Underi said:

Yeah I've been reading about the PC. Indeed, it is an Asus A7N8X Deluxe with a AMD Athlon 2400+ and ATI R6 graphics card rocking a whopping 1GB of ram. I had no idea it was custom built though, but my parents had a friend that knew about computers a lot so it was presumably him.

 

I've taken the PC apart now but an another problem I have with this thing now is that there are no holes for case fans. One fan was attached to the back with some kind of a plastic clip and there are two more on the front of the case and I'm wondering if it's possible to get these plastic adapters anywhere. I thought I'd take a look at LTTs sleeper build and noticed that the case indeed looks very similar. Sadly they didn't even use normal fans but a custom-loop so the video wasn't of much help.

Can these "adapters" be bought from ebay?

 

e-Bay perhaps.  It's a unique feature of those Antec cases so it might be hard to find.