Monitor OK But Displays No Input Signal?

[macman81]

I have been asked to try and fix an old Celeron PC running Windows 98. It boots up OK, can hear one beep for the POST, but nothing on the monitor except 'no signal'. Have tested the monitor and VGA cable on another PC and they are working OK. Have also reseated the RAM and cleaned out a decade of dust, tested the power supply, all OK too.
So I'm assuming the onboard graphics have blown (there's no separate video card)? If I could get hold of an old PCI/ISA video card then I could fit this instead, but without a display working, how can I disable the onboard graphics?
I'm assuming that even if I boot it up in Safe Mode, the monitor will still not function with the basic Windows drivers if the graphics chip has failed? Is there any way around this?
If I remove the CMOS battery, will this reset the graphics to work from a separate card maybe?

 

[^neo^]

Just chuck in a pci card and it will default to that to get you going, then you can disable the onboard in cmos if need be

 

[macman81]

Brilliant, thanks, any particular type/spec of card I should use, not many PCI graphics cards around now I suspect?

 

[^neo^]

being an old pc, i doubt it'll ever be used for anything much more than surfing the web, maybe home office stuff so the cheapest pci card you can find should do, unless the owner wants to do gaming etc.
Any more than 20 quid i would probably be a waste!
Probably find your local independant pc shop will sell you a 2nd hand one for a fiver!

 

[macman81]

Thanks for the advice.
After cleaning it inside and reseating the RAM, the graphics started working again all of it's own accord. No obvious loose connections, just one of those mysterious Windows glitches!