balck screen on install ??

[RudeDog]

We're trying to install Suse 8.0 and as soon as the kernel loads from the install screen we get a black screen. We are booting from a cd and can get to the install screen. My system specs (brand new -self built) - AMD XP 1900+, Asus A7V333 MB, Extasy GeForce3 Ti 500 Video card, Envision 17" TFT monitor, 1 GB DDRram PC2100. Anyone got any ideas? Hard to tell what's happening when you can't see a screen... (Oh, and we tried hooking up my old monitor, a 19" Gateway CRT, but still got a black screen).

[DrZaius]

Hi RudeDog,

I've never used SuSe, so I don't know the isntall procedure, but the problem is with either the display driver or the settings themselves (resolution, refresh rate, etc.) Those need to be adjusted to the correct settings (somwhere in setup?).

[RudeDog]

Hey Doc,
And how can we change them with a black screen? We can't do much because we can't install without the black screen happening. Is there anything we can do with the driver or settings before the install??

Thanks..

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Take a look at your BIOS settings that relate to video. This kind of problem used to happen on older boxes when vga snoop was on, but you may not have that old function, on this newer box. I would still look over the rest of the video related BIOS settings. Second, are we sure the cd is 'good'?

[RudeDog]

The cd is 'good' we've been using it on another machine. I have vga snoop disabled in bios. we are still getting a black screen right after the kernel loads from the installation screen. btw, when we run the memory test from the installation screen we are also getting a black screen. I checkek all the other bios settings related to video, but it's hard to tell what might be wrong - everythings is working fine in windows (win98se). Could it have something to do with my GeForce3? Do you think another distro (redhat?) might work?

[MaXimum SMOKE]

If I were going to try another distro, it would be Red Hat 7.3 Redhat does allow for 'custom' installs, which may be a way to install in text, to maybe see what is happening too.

[RudeDog]

on our install attempt we used the option for text... we also tried several different vga settings. all had the same result. I'm wondering if the 'black screen' is the result of a crash and something else is causing a problem? btw, when we try to run the 'memory test' from the install screen, we get the same result. I have 512mb of PC2100 DDRram installed. all the memory testing I can do from windows shows that the memory is just fine. I've been doing some searching and reading and am wondering if it might not be some kind of timing issue?

[MaXimum SMOKE]

My 'gut' feeling on this is that unless you are running 'overclocked' in the processor, or bus speed, timing probably isn't the issue... At the screen does CTRL - ALT - F1 give you a screen? (substitute F2, 3, and so forth..) anything?