Right, basically I just really need help with this. I have a win XP PC with a Radeon 9800pro graphics card. The other day I moved my (then working) computer into another room and it still worked fine for a day or so. I was then playing a flash game on the internet and it crashed, so I turned it off and returned it to the room it came from.

Since then, it all seems to start up fine. Except the montior will do nothing, it just stays in standby. The fan on the graphics card is turning, so it's working in some capacity. I have had this problem before, but only with the odd startup, and it's always been fixed with a reset. This time that doesn't help (although I did get an image briefly before it vanished again). Also, the keyboard's not being recognised, but I'm not entirely sure if there's any way that that could be a related problem.

Hello blip,

Welcome to PCHF.

Can you remove the graphics card and reset it, just to be sure it didn't become a little loose from the move. There's only one screw holding this in place.

Otherwise, can you try another monitor?

I believe it's actually a different problem. I kept fiddling with things and a couple of times i got a semi-acceptable windows startup and once i managed to boot with last known settings that worked correctly. Unfortunately, it then immitated the earlier crash i mentioned by not letting me move the mouse or use the keyboard, so i had to reset again. Now it gives me all kind of grief, when it does get to anything remtely visible, like freezing just before/after the memory and IDE drive tests (its happened at numerous points). Then it tried to setup some RAID stuff which I won't pretend to understand, and then told me there's been a default bios error. So I think the problem's a little more serious and the reason the monitor was blank was that it hadn't even got to that part of the startup.

OK, I'm just trying to get this clear.

So the monitor isn't constantly blank, it's only at the point you would normally see the desktop, just after the windows loading screen?

If you can boot to Safe Mode? Have you tried changing your display driver or something? This wouldn't of happened just by moving a PC?

No, it's obviously something that hasn't just been caused by movement. This thread's probably in the wrong place now, I've just realised the extent of the problem.

Basically, the monitor is usually blank, though I think not because of the card or monitor, but because the computer is not getting anywhere in the startup process. Occasionally it will get to the memory tests and freeze, and occasionally to the IDE drive tests. Once or twice it has got further, as mentioned, but on 90% of startups nothing whatsoever happens.

Also, whenever it does make it to actually showing something, there's usually a checksum error displayed. If it continues further, it offers RAID setup utilities. Just now i managed to get to XP advanced settings, pressed enter on "boot in safe mode" and then nothing happened.

So it freezes at random?

Random freezes are generally caused by CPU, or less likely the motherboard itself. Is the CPU fan working, and free of dust? Also, can you try reseating the CPU?

If you having checksum errors, this is a clear indication of faulty RAM, as long as the checksum error is at the same address each time?