Fan accelerates, Check Signal Cable shows on screen, computer will not boot

[JenEricRalston]

Last night, we went in to use the computer, which we leave on 24/7. Everything was on, but it was giving some error about my Wacom Tablet driver. The computer was froze up, and Ctrl Alt Del would not reset it. So, I pushed the power off button. A few seconds letter, I pushed it back on again.

The computer fans just accelerated to their highest setting. (I've never heard them get THAT loud.) On the screen, the Check Signal Cable warning was up. There were no beeps, no nothing other than the fans, from the CPU. I tried again this AM and the same problem exists.

Motherboard????

Thanks in advance for any help.

P.S. The computer is 4-5 years old. Hard drive is 1yr old. Graphics card is 6mo old. Pentium 4 w/ HT

[hech54]

I'd re-seat the video card. Same thing happened to my father in law's
computer a few months ago....thought the worst....and it was the video/graphics card had come loose.

[jagabo]

Many things could be causing that problem. Make sure all cards and cables are properly seated. Try a BIOS reset (usually a jumper on the motherboard). If none of that helps, unplug all devices from the motherboard except the graphics card. Can you get the BIOS? If so, start plugging devices in one by one until you find what causes the problem. If not, the problem is the CPU, motherboard, or power supply. Of those three the power supply is the most likely to fail. The fact that your fans are still spinning hints that it's one of the other two though (fans run off the +12 volt rails so it's possible the PSU is putting out 12v but one the other outputs has failed).

[JenEricRalston]

Thanks you all! We will give these suggestions a try, and will report back with our findings.