No video to monitor once Windows loads

[CiSmAXz]

So hear is the story. My friend moved and when he went to conncet his PC he said it wasn't working. He had another friend come over who started making all kinds of BIOS settings to get it to run.

The PC powers on fine, POSTS fine and you can see video. The Windows XP loading screen displays fine, but once it goes to load Windows the signal goes dead. Sounds like a driver issue or bad resolution settings right? Well, I can not get it to boot to safe mode and booting to VGA mode does that same thing as regular - no singal to the monitor.

The monitor is fine I have tried that on another PC. I put a new video card in his PC and it does the same. I reset the BIOS to default and took out the CMOS battery. Still nothing. There is no onboard video card.

The MB is an Asus A7N8X
video card Gforce fx5200

Any ideas?

[Cricket]

Did they check to see if anything came loose during the move? I'd check all power connections and make sure all the cards are fully inserted into their slots/sockets.

Cricket

[CiSmAXz]

Yea, I removed the video card, and put it back in also changed it out with another one and it still didnt work. Checked the memory and it is ok. Plus it POSTs fine it is just when it gets to the desktop that you lose the signal to the monitor.

[sgtspector]

Does the card have a dual output? Make sure you are connected the right one. Does the monitor give a "no signal" message? Does the light on the monitor go yellow or another color indicating sleep or standby? If the monitor "stays on" it may be a corrupted driver. Just some ideas on what I would check. HTH

[GaryRouth]

[I'm writing this from an A7N8X - based system]
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It certainly does sound like the "primary display" setting in the current nVidia driver is set to the wrong output. You could check this by plugging in another monitor to the other output plug [on most of the FX 5200's there is one analog plug & one digital plug]

If that doesn't work, here are a few things to check
________________

Bios settings:

. . . you mentioned setting the Bios to defaults - just to be sure, you could go back in there & make sure the settings "stuck" [since there are a lot of AGP settings in there. The "Advanced Chipset"settings for aperture size should have defaulted to 64mb, the frequency to Auto, the video ram cacheable to Disabled, the AGP voltage to 1.5v, and the AGP 8X support to Enabled. The "Intergrated Peripherals" default setting for Primary VGA Output is likely set to "PCI VGA Card" (the default) - it can't hurt to set it to AGP VGA Card (though it really should work either way, it's just sets where to look first for a video signal). . .

. . . and the USB keyboard support is Disabled by Default, so that entering Safe Mode might be a bit difficult from a USB keyboard until it is set to Enabled (you could boot with a PS/2 keyboard in & make the change).

. . . and one more setting: in "Advanced Bios Features", it's good to have APIC mode set to Enabled.
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If you've been able to reach the boot menu and choose Safe Mode as an option, does it scroll any of the drivers that it's loading? (and then go blank?)

When you ran the memory diagnostics, did you use a CD or diskette-based diagnostic, and test them while still in the troubled machine? (rather than removing them & testing them in a different computer) . . . If you tested the modules "in place", then the video obviously works just fine in DOS (and it's unlikely to be a hardware issue). Seems like you should be able to enter Safe Mode if the current installaton hasn't been badly corrupted.

Might want to test the hard drive with a CD or floppy-diskette based diagnostic, just to rule out any problem with the hard drive.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[CiSmAXz]

Ok - the card does have a s-video an dvi output along with the standard monitor output. I have only tried it on the standard. I dont have a DVI monitor. I probably could try the s-video. On the two monitors that I have tried it on the LCD gave a no singal message and my CRT just went blank with the power light still on.

In safe mode when it boots it just stops after mup.sys loads it never goes blank.

I have not run memory diagnostics

[GaryRouth]

Oops. I thought you'd already run diagnostics.

Why not run a diagnostic, at least it will tell you if the display and card can get along in DOS (along with letting you know the memory and/or hard drive are OK as well)

It'd be nice if you could round up a dvi display, because then - if all else is workng well enough - you could change the display settings.

You mentioned trying VGA mode - have you tried "Last Known Good" yet?

. . . Gary

[CiSmAXz]

yea last known good doesnt work because I think it actually boots to windows fine you just cant see anything. So as far as windows in concerned that last good was each time I turn the machine on.

Im going to try dvi tomorrow

[CiSmAXz]

Ok so I found a PCI video card to try. I put the PCI card in and removed the AGP. The PCI only has one standard VGA output. Boot the PC up and the same thing happens. When it gets to Windows the screen goes blank with the monitor light staying on green.

[glc]

Even in safe mode?

[CiSmAXz]

Yup safe mode just stops after mup.sys and sits there. I actually did manage to get it to boot to VGA mode with the PCI card and I was uninstalling all of the Nvidia drivers. I had to reboot and then it didnt work anymore in VGA mode.

I am working on finding a DVI cable to try that.

[glc]

Try a Windows repair reinstall.

[GaryRouth]

Hi again

If you want to try the repair install, we have a short guide (with links to even more detailed guides) if you decide to go that route --- http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=151522

You might want to first pull the drive and make backups of sensitive data if there's anything critical on there [just in case anything goes wrong during the reinstall]
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If you aren't able to find either a dvi monitor or a dvi-to-VGA cable, there are dvi-to-VGA adapter plugs that go for as little as three dollars and a few cents. If you can find someone who has one of these, that would let you try that other output [though, at this point, I'm not all that confident you'll get a display -- since with the cards coming and going the video configuration might be a bit dicey]. At any rate, here's what the adapters look like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814999902

Hope it works out
. . . Gary

[CiSmAXz]

DVI cable did not work it did the same thing. By that time I was tired of messing with it so we just reinstalled Windows on a different hard drive. Thanks for the responses.