DescentBB

comp. booted fine and everything normal. Went away for a bit and when I came back the monitor was blank with the little box saying "Override sync error.
Tried restarting but all that comes up is that message.
Problem in the monitor or the vid card?
Monitor is a cheap no name and I think the vid card is a matrox G200.

Can you try a different monitor? Jiggle the cord? check to make sure a pin hasnt fallen out? Anything? Can it reboot and the monitor starts? Try to post with a different card?

Restart into Safe mode. That'll run it at 60Hz, which is what any decent monitor (re: Anything that isn't from the damned stone age) should be able to handle with no problems. If it still persists, my vote would be on the card going south.

Can't start in safe mode as all I get is a blank screen with the sync error message. Swapping the monitors was my first bet, I just didn't want to lug my spare monitor up to work to test it out. (nice weather and I'm riding my scooter so it be hard to strap a monitor on it )

Well, you could probably just borrow a monitor from another workstation. If not, you could always borrow a video card. If the display works with the new card...well, you get the idea.

I had an older monitor that decided it didn't like a refresh rate of 85, so I had to attach a new one that could handel it and turn the refresh all the way down. Then I just reconnected the older one and picked a refresh it liked. Probably the only way to do it, unless you can some how memorize the exact sequence of keyboard commands so you can do it blind.

After switching monitor and testing the cpu and memory...ta da!, it's the power supply. Indicator lights on the M.B. first said CPU so I took it out and had it tested. Turned out just fine. Came back and reinstalled CPU, started comp.; ran for about a 1/2 hour then locked up again. Rebooted and lights indicated bad memory. Took memory out and had that tested. It was fine. Came back, reinstalled memory and wouldn't boot so I pulled power supply and that seems to be the problem.
Now some of you might remember a year or so ago about my posts about power supplys crapping out. Since then I rebuilt the computor, got a battery backup surge protector that "washes" the electricity and here I am a year later with another Antec power supply gone bad. This is on a office computor that I only use for peachtree accting, microsoft word and lotus. Certainly not stressed in any manner. Any thoughts on why a powersupply would die under these conditions would be appreciated.

was it this PSU you posted?

He said it was an Antec.

Well I thought it was the PS. Yesterday the comp would again not boot. I did not have the air conditioning on and the office was pretty warm so I don't know if ambiant heat is the problem or something else.
I am quietly going nuts.

I had a motherboard go insane on me a couple summers ago. It would randomly shut itself down for no reason, would loose things on POST like RAM and drives, and eventually stopped booting at all. I tried replacing the PS before I figured it was the mobo. Maybe you've got something similar?

Took the whole box down and had it tested. Results?...it worked just fine even under a load test.
Took it back to the oofice and it works fine (so far).
Theories:

Vid card looks like it was very slightly cocked in the pci slot even though it was in tight.

Did not re-connect wireless mouse, just using cable standard mouse.

APC battery backup protection glitzy. Seems to be working O.K. now so I dunno.

Transporting box may have jiggled something?