My Z420 WorkStation doesn’t connect with my monitor and black screens

[EricJustice]

  

 

 

 

I recently got a new computer so I wanted to give my old station away. I removed only the SSDs and took out the ram before realizing that it was DDR3 and then putting it back. Fast forward until today, we plugged in a new Drive that has windows preinstalled in it but when powering it, we get a DisplayPort error. We tried both HDMI and DVI but non of those worked, I made sure that the ports were plugged into the graphics card and not the motherboard and that the cables were sitting in right but yet no progress. It had worked just one week prior and now it doesn’t even connect to a monitor (we tested the monitor with other machines to make sure that it wasn’t faulty) We suspect that it might be a problem with the gpu because everything looks fine when booting up the computer. The fans start and the power indicator flash blue. After a while the fan starts getting very loud however and I don’t know what’s up with that either. Any help would be appreciated 🙂

[BeemerBiker]

Remove ram and gpu

Use air duster on motherboard & GPU

examine memory stick connectors for any corrosion and use eraser to scrub clean the gold contacts.

There is a memory configuration table here

https://h20331.www2.hp.com/hpsub/downloads/z420_memory_configurations.pdf

Pick the best looking stick of memory and put into slot DIMM1

Put in GPU and see if it turns on.  Any beep codes?

You mentioned that windows was pre-installed on a drive.  Was it designed for your Z420 such as a backup? 

If not you need to press F8 and try to boot into safe mode so the correct drivers can be downloaded.  

You should be booting windows from a DVD or USB install drive onto a clean SSD or HDD

Try first to run diagnostics.  Tap ESC after turning on then F2 to select test program.