Why my video card stopped working after i a friend of mine cleaned it up? I am getting this message:?

"please check video cable connection."



First of all the onboard video card does not work, I was using a video card that i installed on a VGA slot. it worked fine for a long time up until:



1. My PC got full of viruses: I tried to clean my PC. by running antivirus software, and it did find and clean a bunch. However, it made it worse because afterwards, i couldn't even log in (the video card was still working fine). I put my XP CD and run the recovery console with some recovery commands, still no boot. I took my hard rive out, installed it on my other PC as slave and run check disk utility - still no luck. Run antivirus software from my other PC, and it did not find anymore viruses. However, my video card as i said, it was working fine by then.



2. I took it to friend's house so he could fix this boot problem that i had:

He told me he could not made the video card to work with his PC (he is a computer person).



3. I got it back to my House and decided it to reinstall my OS. wWhen I boot the PC to reinstall XP again, I got this message: "please check video cable connection." And I said, that’s strange because it was working fine when i took it to my friend. I called him to ask him: "what did you do to it? "I cleaned the inside of it because it was all dirty - that's all I did” he said.



4. He and I then tried both, another VGA and PCI video card to see if it was the video card, but no luck (by the way, the PC was not posting - no beeps at all). He Took the CMOS battery for 10 seconds, and no luck. Disconnect the hard rive, DVD/CD drive, floppy drive, RAM, and still, no signal and no posting.



5. I Took all the components mention above with an addition to the video card to see if the PC would post, and nop, no posting at all (No beeps).



6. Finally, yesterday, I took the motherboard out and cleaned blowing air with my mouth (i did not have compress air jeje), put it back into the case. I tried it without RAM, hard drive, DVD/CD drive, floppy drive, to see if it would post, and without all these components all I hear is: One Long Beep After another one and it keeps repeating after 3 or 4 seconds.



I put the RAM back in it, power the PC back on and now BEEPS at all again. I tried it with the hard rive and DVD/CD drive AND NO RAM, and i get the same: One Long Beep After another one. So, only without the RAM I can hear those long beeps, but without the RAM, no beeps at all.



What can the problem be? Can someone please give me any suggestions? I need my PC! Please someone!! thanx in advanced!|||A machine will NEVER post with no ram, it is essential. Messing around inside the machine without proper anti-static precautions can do permanent damage. Careless handling (even just trying to brush dust off the board can damage components. You will need to use the existing on board card to get a post screen until you go in to the bios and change the setting to use the additional card. It only originally needed a repair re-install by booting from the cd, selecting install, and then selecting the R repair option at the screen showing the original partition. It would then have needed a driver re-install. Unless the original card can get you running to start with, you may be looking at a new board, maybe a CPU and ram, so it may be better to get a new machine.|||Uhh, to me, it sounds like you may have fried some of the components out of your PC. Handling those parts is a very delicate business and also if you arte not using an anti-static wristband, you run a much higher risk of killing the parts simply by touching them at all. Sorry to give you the bad news....