I am trying to repair a Compaq Presario 5030; its hard drive holds all my daughter's and her teenage daughter's files so it's really a biggie to get this one working and no one can AFFORD the $50-$100 hr for a tech.  The screen went dark on her and she used the I/O switch on the power supply to shut it down.  What I get when turning on the system via the I/O switch is LEDs that light up (including on the CD drive) and a PS fan that turns, but nothing on the monitor screen. I attached a monitor that I personally know works, and still nothing.  Motherboard has onboard video. Thinking this might be the problem, I installed a PCI video card and plugged the working monitor into it. Still evidence that power is on but still no evidence of signal to monitor.  Where do I go from here when I can't even get anything on-screen? Is the BIOS LOADING anyway? I know that the hard drive can be installed on a different working computer and the data retrieved but, for me, that is the last desperate move that I would make.  Number 1 is to save this computer.  Pentium II 233 or 266 Mhz, 256Mb RAM, Windows 98, video and sound integrated on MOBO.  This is getting out of hand and starting to get way beyond my level of expertise.  Your insight would be so appreciated.Do you get any beep messages?  You might have to go into the BIOS and disable the onboard video.  When you boot the system up, does the HDD light flicker like it should when booting properly?  If you don't have any HDD flicker then you might have other issues but I suspect it's just the video card.I too suspect that it's just the video card but how do I go into the BIOS if I can't see its settings on a monitor screen? Right now, the HDD light stays on at all times BUT it wasn't doing that until I started messing around with the HDD (removing cable/reinserting cable).  Daughter had actually taken the PS out of the box and even had taken the cover off of it!  Plus, the HDD has been installed (by a previous amateur techie the last time her computer crashed) minus its bracket assembly and had it literally sitting on top of the CD drive.  I placed the HDD in an extra 3.5 internal bay and may have not lined up the cable pins correctly.  So that is the story on perhaps why the HDD light is now staying on. To anwswer your question re the POST beep, yes, the first time around, while I had the PS connected outside of the box and had not yet touched the HDD, I did hear ONE beep which, as I understand it, would be the correct number of beeps to want to hear.  So I'm back to how to go into the BIOS (and disable the onboard video) if I cannot see the BIOS settings on a screen.I want to add this info to the mix in a search for the answer to my problem:  Back, before I added the PCI video card, one of the things I had done was to CLEAR the CMOS on the MOBO by resetting the JUMPER and then putting it back where it had been.  Since that seemed to have to effect at the time, I haven't revisited that issue. Perhaps I should clear the CMOS again now that I have installed the video card?When you cleared the CMOS you probably wiped out some pertinent info required for the MACHINE to boot properly. Try booting from a PODD (plain old dos disk) and see if anything comes up. And double check your monitor connections to make certain that they are properly secured.TO 2kdummy:  Monitor connections are tight at both ends.  I created a DOS 6.22 boot disk off of www.bootdisk.com and tried it with three different Floppy Disk Drives that I had on hand. Nada.  Could it be a ruined motherboard?

TO Joleen:  OR, assuming the MOBO is functioning, then I still would like to know how you set  BIOS when you can't see its wording on a monitor screen.

Thank you, both for caring to help.  I've almost had it with this thing.  You can also reset your BIOS by taking out your CMOS battery for 10 seconds and then placing it back.

Computer CMOS information

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I am trying to repair a Compaq Presario 5030....