I know there's a lot of computer savvy people here and I need some help. I have an HP (yeah I know, first mistake) approx 5 years old. Amd FX-8100 processor. Recently the monitor was going black and a loud fan would run. If I shut it down for a while, it would work normal. I opened the case and removed the GP card and blew the dust out of it and the rest of the machine. All fans are running as they should. It was good for a few weeks and now it's happening again. The graphics card is a Radeon HD 7670. I thought the hard drive may be going bad because it will boot but not show the desktop. Bought a new drive and tried to install it with a new OEM windows 7 DVD in a external usb dvd drive running it from the 2.0 usb on the back of the pc. When I get to the install screen, no drives are showing in the list. The error says there's no signed drivers. I downloaded some drivers from the HP support site and loaded them on a thumb drive. The pc only sees the thumb drive but nothing that I moved to it from my laptop. A watched several youtube vids on this problem but nothing is working. Part of me thinks the graphics card is bad. I did download and update the driver shortly before I had this issue the 2nd time.

I was wondering if the graphics card is used immediately when the pc starts or takes over after the pc boots? So right now I have the black screen of death so they say.

This has been very helpful so far. I didn't know that a pc could have it's own graphics port but mine does not. All 3 ports are on the Radeon card, HDMI, DVI and some other one that I don't recognize. I don't see anything else that would accept a vid cable. Maybe there's software that runs the video just for setup and boot purposes? So I know the monitor is working because I can see the splash screen and windows starting, then at the point at which the desktop usually appears, the screen goes dark, but I can still see a faint light if I turn off the lights in the room. The same happens when starting normally or safe mode. I bought a cheap graphics card from Amazon. It's a slight upgrade from what I have now. The PC model is a Pavilion HPE H8 1200Z.

As far as installing a clean copy of windows. I replaced the SATA cable. I always assume bad connections as I would on a pin. When selecting custom install, no hard drives are listed. and I get the error wanting drivers, so yes maybe it's the RAID thing. I see a raid option thing pop up on the screen at start up. I have no clue what it is. I downloaded drivers from my windows 10 laptop. They are listed as applications in the folder. I don't see and option for extracting them if they are compressed. If I double click any of them, the machine wants to install them and I quit at that point.

Before all this happened, I backed up the C drive to a passport portable drive, I thought the drivers would be on it, but I don't know what I'm looking for or where to look.

BTW, all test passed in F2 diagnostics.

Lcd. No I cannot see anything after it goes dark. Didnt try another monitor yet. I will later tonight when I get done work.

Tried it. Didnt work.

Thanks. I will look at it

Thanks for that info!! For now, I'm hoping the original drive is still working but has some corrupt files and/or drivers. I got the new GPU today, thanks Amazon for leaving it the rain all day! It's a 2Gb MSI Nvidia GEforce GT 710. I went cheap since I don't do any gaming. Upon installation, I powered it up and the first screen with the HP logo (splash screen?) comes on and stays on. If I tap any key the screen goes blank. According to the specs, this card should work in my PC. So either I got a bad one or my PC doesn't like it. I put the old one back in for now.

I spent a few hours on this thing last night. I'm ready to kick it to the curb! It seems that Microsoft doesn't want anybody using 7 any longer. No support or downloads that I can find. The Anytime Upgrade option is NLA. Thinking that the vid card was bad, I bought a cheap one from Amazon. When installed, it instantly freezes on the splash screen. Hitting any key causes the display to go black.

Currently I have the original hard drive in sata0 and the new one in sata1. Original vid card back in and I can get it to boot in safe mode. According to HP, I have the latest revision BIOS. Mine is 7.17 and the HP site shows 7.16, don't know how that happened. So in safe mode, I tried to install a fresh copy of Win7 to the new disk. It's 1 Tb but only shows it as having 100mb. I'm guessing it needs to be formatted. Or it's bad. I'm trying to keep the original drive files intact. I also tried to install the driver for the new vid card and the install says my system is not compatible. I'm starting to wonder if it's worth buying a new mother board for this. It's a Gigabyte M3970AM-HP. If I decide to go Win 10, should I invest in a better processor? Will I be able to open the files on the original disk with Win 10 installed or on a new PC with Win 10?

I have tried all the available self repair options and system restore, no success. It still wants drivers for the Win 7 OEM dvd. In safe mode I found two problems in the device mgr, Security Processor Loader not present and Consumer IR Devices not working, which I uninstalled thinking that would help.

Lastly, I tried a different monitor that uses DVI and no change, but going back to the original monitor with the HDMI cable, I now get nothing at all. Frustrating!

I updated all the drivers in safe mode. I will try to uninstall the vid driver and see what happens,
tnx

I did do that. I still get errors and and it asks for drivers.

I believe I did. The first thing I tried was to run a repair disc. The instructions were vague. It either needed to boot from UEFI or Legacy. I tried both. I can't find the path or key to get into the BIOS settings.

Yes the monitor power light changes from yellow to green, or blue, I can't remember which. The original problem started with the monitor going blank while PC was running. A fan would run loudly when this happened. I figured the PC was over heating. I dusted the GPU with compressed air. It worked fine for about a month and then I heard the fan coming on again. After this, the PC would act like it was starting. The splash screen comes on and then it starts to boot. Starting windows appears and then the swirly thing. Usually at this point the desk top would appear but it just goes blank. I blew out the entire case with compressed air just to make sure it was clean. I checked all the fans, they are running. Somewhere in the middle of this

I searched for an updated GPU driver, automatically from the device manager screen. The problem started soon after.

So maybe either GPU is bad, the mother board, or the PCI slot is bad. Or corrupt files on the disk drive?

I took a break from this for a few days. I might start on it again soon and post what happens.

Looking at mobos now. I found that the original board doesn't support on board graphics.

So I believe my original hard drive is still good. I can get to boot in safe mode. New GPU didn't help. Monitor verified as good. At this point, I'm hoping either the RAM, cpu, or the mobo is bad. I have new RAM on the way( upgrading from 6 to 8 MB. . I will try swapping into original board first. If that fails, I have a tested used mobo that I got for $32. Also a new AMD FX8320E CPU. The issue with that is the heat sink that came with the cpu has a different mounting type. So I will need to use the original fan which is actually bolted to the board.

This will be the last HP I ever own.

I was thinking the same thing. I have learned alot during this and building one doesn't seem all that difficult.

Ok, I'm finally getting somewhere. I figured the ram was still good because it passed the smart test in the diagnostics and was also able to boot in safe mode. I tried to update the display adapter driver and windows kept saying it already had the most current driver, even though it was dated 2012. I checked AMD website and they released a new driver not too long ago. I got fed up and uninstalled the display adapter all together. I then placed the new GPU (Geforce GT-710) and it still wont boot. I went back to the original AMD and whatta ya know! It booted. The resolution is way off though. None of my files were affected so I know the HDD is good. After booting I got a window titled Hydravision. It reads, AMD's desktop manager is being unloaded because an AMD display driver is not currently running. If you have administrator privileges, click reset to revert to default settings. Or select cancel to close this window with no changes. To permanently remove an installed AMD display driver, use the add/remove programs control panel.

So point of decision now. Do I uninstall the driver and try to download the latest from AMD or install the cd from the new GPU. Or both? I'm afraid to try the new one because it won't let the PC boot. I read the my mother board doesn't have on board graphics. So I'm guessing Hydravision is a HP program that was installed when the pc was built?

Since the pc was running, I decided to re-sync my ipod to save all of my songs. My Itunes was out of date so I installed the latest version. I asked me to re-start the computer and I did. It didn't reboot so now I'm running start up repair, ugh!

PC is partially working now. If I uninstall the original radeon GPU and reboot the pc, it will run. It runs on standard VGA and the display looks funny. I guess it's because I have a wide screen monitor. If I restart the pc, it will reinstall the radeon driver and the screen will go black as before. I bought 2 different brand new GPU's. Neither one will work. I tried a new Gigabyte Radeon R7 240, When installed, the splash screen will not come on. Now this is after, changing mother board, hard driver, ram and power supply and processor.
I also tried to install a new copy of windows 7 to a new hard driver, and I can't even do that! Stumped...

No. The original GPU is the radeon. I tried the Geforce GT-710 and the and the one mentioned on my last post.

Actually, the first one that I tried, the Geforce was nvidia and that didn't work. I did get splash screen but is went blank as soon as I hit any key so I couldn't get to the bios screen.