thanks for the help I was thinking the bios also and was hoping its not that. I'd say it was the graphics card but wouldn't you end up hearing windows starting up with the speakers connected?

The monitor stays in standby mode once turned on, we left the computer on for 30 minutes never heard windows load through the speakers and nothing ever happened on the screen.

I have a hard time believing it could be a chip loose in there only because now that it's stopped working this is the first time someone has opened it up and it's not like it was jarred or kicked around or anything.


edit: one more question, her computer was password protected which seems to make it impossible to get into her documents and settings or onto her desktop when I connect her hard drive to my computer using an external case. Is there anyway to get around this so we can atleast open up that stuff onto my computer?