My z558 is about 2 years old.  I've had to restore it several times but recently, when I boot the machine, I have absolutely NO VIDEO.  I cannot even see the blue HP boot screen.  I can hear the hard drive and after a short while the LCD display on front looks as though the machine booted, but I get no video output.  I've tried using the VGA output to a regular computer monitor and still get no output.  Also, I could have sworn the machine made a single beep when booted.  I no longer hear that beep.  Has anyone experienced this?  Any ideas for a possible fix?

Best Regards.

Time for a new cpu/motherboard/ram. Or maybe just a powersupply. Either way, it's shot and time to give up.

Thank you for such a helpful reply.

short and to the point

My z558 recently did the same thing.  I already had two extenders hooked up to it so I was able to determine that the z558 was still working.  I was able to program new recordings and watch recordings through the extender but I had no video on the z558 itself.  A call to HP got me a warranty replacement video card that I installed today.  Everything started up fine and I am now watching the z558 locally.  Apparently the video cards are still available. There is also someone here on this board that substituted a different video card.  Try giving HP a call.  If you're not interested in repairing your z558 I may buy it from you if the price is right.

I just bought the last MSI NX8500GT MDT256EH from Amazon and installed it Monday night.  The difference from the OEM card is amazing.  This card is low profile but comes with a full size bracket which I merely took off.  I'm using the DVI port going to HDMI input and the S-Video output came with a component adapter which goes to my projector.  The image is absoutely crystal clear and there's no flicker whatsoever.  Also, the entire machine runs much cooler.  With the original card the fan would contantly kick in and the top of the box got so hot you could barely touch it.  Since the new card has been in the fan hasn't kicked into turbo mode at all... no once.  And the top of the case is barely warm.  All that just from replacing the video card! 

Before buying the card, I did spend about an hour in an online chat with an HP rep to troubleshoot the issue to be sure it was the video card and not a bad slot on the motherboard or something else.  I'll have to say that HP's support is less than desirable.  He kept asking me to go into the bios for info and I had to constantly remind him I had no video... duh! 

I'm glad we both got our machines back... I missed mine :-)

Had the same problem, twice. After trying to extend my warranty, and getting stalled by HP support until it ran out -- at which point they flat out said NO, I replaced it myself with the same vid card. Many have used to with great results.

My picture is more customizable, the screen actually fits the tv now. As an extra like you said, the machine is much quieter and cooler, even in the summer when temps go up. Much happier with it now. Next project is to replace the fan and maybe upgrade the HD to a TB.

Have already replaced the crappy OEM Litescribe drive. That gave up after abot 6mos. It always read CD's, barely read DVD's toward the end, and often locked up the machine when trying to burn DVD's at the end. Some DVD's would take literally 12hrs to burn a 1hr tv show. All this and it was only DVD-r too. Replaced with a $45 DVD-+R, Dual layer and all that other good stuff drive that is magnitudes faster and quieter to boot. These machines can be made great with a few simple upgrades.

HP apparently opted to skimp on the easily upgraded peripherals, and I guess it cost them in the end. Great idea, great machine, so so execution, and criminal support.

Heybiff
Z558 owner.

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Hp DEC Z558
XP MCE
Two yrs under the belt, only sent back twice!
New vid card, new DVD drive.

I had the same problem with mine and assumed it was the video card.  I had already replaced the cooling fan on the nVidia 6600 that came with the machine once, and when I saw no video one day a few months later I assumed it was my graphics card.  I bought a cheap ATI 3450 low profile card with no cooling fan, just a good sized heatsink (didn't want the fan to fail again and was hoping that not having one would reduce the power draw of the card - and be a tad bit quieter).  After swapping out the graphics card it's worked fine since... and even after running the system restore once... no problem with the nVidia graphics driver.  Just removed the nVidia driver uneventfully and went about my business.

Also, I too had my lightscribe dvd drive go bad early on.  I replaced it with a cheap samsung lightscribe drive from Microcenter that seems to be doing fine.

Another unrelated-to-the-thread bit - I took my personal media drive out and plugged it into another pc on the home network.  From there I shared and took that bit of workload off the z558's power supply (again hoping to reduce the power consumption).

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HP Z558/ATI Radeon 3450/2GB PC3200/320GB SATA/3.2 P4/ATI HDTV Wonder/Hauppauge WinTV PVR II/XP MCE 2005

Having just replaced the PS, that's good thinking.

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HP z556 +mem + drives
MCE2005

Hi,,,I was wondering if you were able to change out the video card and your z558 worked again?