Monitor is unresponsive

So, we had this massive thunderstorm roll through this morning—thunder claps everywhere and lightning actually struck somewhere nearby. One part of my house was basically electrified for a second... so naturally, I yanked the computer straight out of the wall. Now I’m trying to boot it back up, but the monitor is being totally unresponsive. The PC itself turns on—I can hear the fans whirring and everything—but nothing shows up on the screen. The power light is blue, and you can tell the screen isn't completely dead because the color shifts slightly when the tower powers up, but there's just no image. Any idea what could be broken?

Maybe the issue lies with your Adobe card. I'd suggest plugging your computer into a neighbor's monitor just to see what's actually going on; that should clear things up for you.

So I’ve got integrated graphics and this "dedicated" card—it's hard to believe both would just kick the bucket at the exact same time... but hey, nothing is impossible. I'm going to try hooking the PC up to a different monitor. I already tried plugging it into the TV, but still nothing... looks like the issue isn't actually the monitor itself.

Lawrence Barnes64 said:Try unplugging the power cord—just pull the plug from the wall—then hit the power button a few times without any juice running to it. You gotta drain all that leftover charge out of the capacitors... you might even need to touch those three pins on the back of the rig to make sure everything's totally bled out. Then plug it back in and see if it kicks. That trick saved my skin a couple of times after a lightning strike messed things up once...

Yeah, no luck. Tried everything you suggested, but I'm still staring at the same dead screen.

Look, you should probably just try unplugging the whole thing from the wall first—pull the power cable out of the tower (Lawrence Barnes64)—and then just mash the power button a few times without any juice running through it. You gotta drain all that leftover energy sitting in the capacitors; I even went as far as touching those three pins on the back of the motherboard just to make sure everything was totally bled dry... once you've done that, plug it back in and give it another shot. Honestly, that trick saved my skin a couple of times after a massive lightning strike fried my setup back in the day

Looks like my Adobe card finally kicked the bucket. I popped in an old one just to get by and it’s running... though the PC feels a bit sluggish now, but hey, it works...

Have you even attempted to connect via the integrated Adobe graphics without having a dedicated card plugged in? You can go into the BIOS and toggle which chip is set as the primary—so try running it without the card entirely, or just force the integrated Adobe setup to be the main one in the BIOS settings. It might still be functional...