Hello Hive;

Brief background;

PC: Dell w/AMD X4 630, 8GB Ram, old PC just use for ARF/interwebz, no heavy work, originally a WIN 7 machine upgraded to WIN 10 about a year ago, upgraded RAM to 8GB about 3 - 4 mos ago.

Started crashing about 2 weeks ago, maybe once a day, then more often, then got BSOD/Error, started trouble shooting; Memory Diagnostic, System Restore to earlier date, was going to try a few other ideas (drivers, hard disc, etc) and then it did a full crash, PC powers on, no display at all but I can hear it running.

Have not tried to boot into safe mode but with no display I am questioning my ability to get the PC to boot/display.

Thoughts on the next approach . . . . . .

May just yank the drive and pop it into an external USB enclosure and see if I can salvage.  Important family pics all backed up but have some (somewhat important but not critical) files I want to try and retrieve.

normally you get post screens even if windows doesn't show up.
if you aren't even getting post screens, then I would make sure the monitor checks good, and then get a cheap video card to see if it boots.
If you are just going to get a new machine, then yeah, yank the hd and copy your stuff off.
actually that might not be a bad idea to do anyway so you don't eat something trying to boot it up multiple times without a clean shutdown.

This is the way to start.

Swap video cable, borrow a monitor or hook it to a laptop and test. (You can test cable and monitor this way.)

Reseat the video card and make sure if it has a fan, that the fan is running.  The good news is really old computers have cheapo cards you can probably still get, maybe even free used.

I know the monitor and cable are good.

I put a different PC in place (same cable/monitor) and runs as it should.

I will try a few things, thanks for the comments.

Create a usb boot drive. Not sure how it works for windows but you can dump something user friendly like Linux Mint onto a usb/thumb drive and do a live boot. IE just boot from the os on the usb vs actually installing it.
That will help determine if your OS image is bad or if you have failing hw like a flakey video card or motherboard causing the issues.

kb5000808 and KB5000802 released early to mid march have been causing BSOD and reboots.

If you're not even getting the post after power on, I would think it's more a physical issue than software i.e. bad PSU, motherboard or possibly RAM that you just upgraded. A good nondestructive test is to remove the RAM you just added and try to power on using only the RAM that was there previously.

To go further, you can swap out the RAM leaving only one stick in a a time to see if the system will boot.

Thanks for the additional comments.

I have the 3GB of original RAM (which was completely removed) that ran for many years with no issues, the new RAM is just a few months old (4 X 2GB Crucial).

Going to swap the RAM sticks first and see what I have, I will then try the other suggestions.

I appreciate the input.

ETA 04/15;

Took out the 4 x 2GB Crucial RAM, replaced with 3 X 1GB OEM Dell/Micron, no change, PC powers up no display.

Might pop out the hard drive tomorrow.

FUCKERS;

Still dead, common problem apparently.

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Techradar one day ago WIN 10 update FUBAR's shit