Dell Flat Screen monitor problem

[Moomin]

Hi, i just purchased a E172FP Dell Flat screen Monitor but i am having a problem. I plugged it all in using the standard stuff that came with it. It works fine starting up the computer, system screen loads, DOS screen loads, then the windows XP loading scren looks fine, then as son as i get to the login screen it all goes black. The monitor is on but i see nothing. I have tried plugging it into another PC and it worked find. That PC was running windows 98SE with a NVIDIA TNT2 graphics card. The system I am trying to get it to work on is:
P4 2Ghz, Radeon 9600 PRO, 512mb DDR RAM with Windows XP Pro.
Please, any help would be great!

[RJ]

What resolution did you use before you got the flatscreen ? The 17" TFT can only display 1280x1024. If you used a higher resolution, then it won't work. My Philips TFT not only goes black, but it gives a message that an excessive resolution was selected and I need to reduce that.
That could be your problem, too.

RJ

[Moomin]

Im using 1024x768 so that shouldent be a problem should it?

[RJ]

No that shouldn't be a problem, it must be something else.
I'd connect your previous monitor (or any monitor that will work with that PC right now) and delete the monitor entry in device manager. If there are multiple entries, delete them all. Shut the PC down, then disconnect the monitor, connect your TFT and start your PC.

RJ

[Moomin]

I did as u said but i'm still having the same problem. However, in the device manager it has now recognised my monitor as plug and play and displays it as the Dell E172FP, also every display device i can change is now the TFT monitor. Yet i still can't see anything, so i have to use my other monitor to post this. Now im really confused :confused:

[glc]

Cut the refresh rate down to 60 Hz.

[Moomin]

It's already at 60Hz, and the drivers are installed from the CD, still no luck. It seems as tho everything points to it working but the screen goes black after the windows loading screen...

[Moomin]

Ok i tried running in safe mode and the monitor works. So does that mean that its a problem with my graphics card? I dowloaded the latest drivers for my Radeon 9600 Pro but still no joy.

[glc]

It almost has to be a setting in the video driver somewhere that's actually sending it out of range.

[RJ]

I'd reduce the graphic options to minimum (640x480, 256 colors and 60 Hz). If it works now, then increase the resolution and color depth (not the refresh rate, keep it at 60 Hz) and find out how far you can go.

RJ

[Moomin]

It only goes as low as 800x600 so i changed the setting to that and changed the colour depth to 16mb (medium) which is the lowest it will go. Still having the same problem. I think it must be a problem with my graphics card but i have no idea what :(

Edit: I did manage to set it as low as 640 with 256 colours but the monitor just went into standby mode and wouldent even stay on, with the other modes it stays on but the screen is black.

[Moomin]

As i have a ATI graphics card, anyone know if i have to use the DVI-I connector to use my TFT monitor? I didn't have to on my other PC that had an Nvidia TNT 2, but i thought that could be the problem, any thoughts?

[glc]

Thats very possible - the standard VGA output just might be only for a secondary monitor - you may have just hit on the solution. Use the DVI connector with the VGA adapter.

[Moomin]

Well...it will be a VGA connector with a DVI adapter but i hope that works the same way, the standard connector that was with the monitor was VGA. I'll try it tomorrow when i have bought one. On the ATI website it says the VGA port is only for analog video signals and the DVI is for analog and digital signals, so does that make sense to plug it into the DVI port?

[glc]

The card *should* have come with an adapter!

[Moomin]

Yes it did and guess what...it worked! Thanks for all the help its been such a pain getting this to work and all i had to do was attatch the adapter lol

[RJ]

Well, glad you finally got this thing working. This behaviour is new to me, as so far no matter where I connected a device to (S-Vid, VGA ,DVI), it just worked. . .but they were all nVidia cards.
Next month I'll buy an ATI card for me, too, I'll see if it's the same there.
Anyway, have fun now :)

RJ

[glc]

Yup - Hydravision works a bit different than TwinView.