Screen keeps going blank

[woooga]

Back in May I built a budget PC for a family member (the spec is below) and it worked fine until he tried to plug in a new monitor, 3 months later. When he did the screen just went black and the computer stopped responding but the fans are still running, it just won't display anything and won't respond to anything. At one point when it did this I noticed horizontal lines going across the screen for a split second before it went blank, so I assumed it was a graphics error. As it is using on board graphics I thought it must be either the CPU or motherboard so I sent returned both and they tested them and said the motherboard was fine but the CPU was faulty so they replaced the CPU and sent me the original MB back. I re built the computer and had exactly the same problem, so I sent the MB back again and asked them to test it again which they did. Unfortunately they couldn't find any problem with it so they sent me the same MB back again and suggested it might be the memory. They have since replaced the memory and it has still not solved the problem. I thought it may be a Windows or driver problem so I've re installed Windows and updated all drivers and still no progress.

 

Does anyone have any ideas? I am still convinced the motherboard is faulty but I'm open to any suggestions.

 

Spec:

Motherboard - ASRock FM2A55M-VG3+

CPU - AMD A4000 3.2GHz

RAM - 4GB 1333MHz DDR3

HDD - Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB

PSU - 450W

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

[tmlhalo]

Can you confirm that the new monitor is not faulty? Can it show a signal from another device using the same cable and input port? What about other cables and ports? Possibly HDCP issues?

[woooga]

I haven't tried the monitor with any other computers but I have tried the computer with a couple of other monitors which I am sure are 100% OK and still get the same problem. The only output on that motherboard is VGA and I've tried a number of different VGA cables.

[tmlhalo]

Is it black at Windows login or it just never shows anything? (No logo, no bios, nothing ever)

[TehTotalPwnage]

I think it's probably the motherboard that's shot. I've heard a lot of bad things about ASRock's customer service. Do you have a graphics card lying around to use for video to see if it's for sure the onboard video?

[woooga]

Is it black at Windows login or it just never shows anything? (No logo, no bios, nothing ever)

Sometimes it doesn't show anything at all, sometimes it is fine and you can use it for an hour or 2 then it will suddenly go black

 

 

 

 

I think it's probably the motherboard that's shot. I've heard a lot of bad things about ASRock's customer service. Do you have a graphics card lying around to use for video to see if it's for sure the onboard video?

It isn't ASRock's customer service I've had a problem with, in fact I have avoided them because I have also heard bad things. It's the retailers customer service/technical support that seem to be completely useless.

[TehTotalPwnage]

I don't think there's much a retailer can do when it comes to this kind of stuff. I'm not completely sure though, but it looks like you'll have to try your luck with their customer service.

[woooga]

So it turns out I was right all along. Eventually after 7 months and testing it 5 times they admitted the motherboard was faulty (I worked this out straight away with 1 test). New motherboard and it's working fine. Won't be using cclonline.com again.