Hey all. Last week I noticed that when my Dell 8600 posted, the screen remained blank/black until Windows started up, making it impossible to access the BIOS (in fact the screen remained blank while in the BIOS as well, if I was in fact in there). Other than that, it was working like a champ. I figured that it might have been due to an out-of-date driver, so I upgraded to the most recent BIOS from the Dell website, but it was still staying blank until Windows fired up. So, as it was still not working, I went back to the Dell site and downloaded the latest video drivers for it (I should have gotten them from nVidia like I usually do, but I got lax). After I installed them, things got even worse to the point that after Windows boots, the screen goes blank the second the desktop icons finish rendering. I'm stumped; Safe Mode isn't visible, nor is rebooting to the last known working configuration. If I boot into VGA Mode, it starts Windows as usual, goes blank for two seconds after the desktop icons render then comes back on for a couple of seconds with a popup balloon saying that the resolution and color depth are set too low. The actions that it makes are consistent, so it doesn't strike me as a loose cable or the like. Also, it can run like this for hours, doesn't crash, and can be accessed through my network. I'm thinking that rolling the video drivers back to a prior version is the fix that I need, but how do I go about it? I was thinking that if I could boot my Win XP disk, I could use it's repair function, but I have the boot sequence in the CMOS set up to only boot up the hard drive and nothing else when I power on. So that's my dilemma - if any of you out there have any insight on how to go about correcting this issue, I'd love to hear from you.
Dell 8600
SXGA Display
64mb nVidia Go 5200
512mb
XP Pro (SP1)
Thanks,
garnoman
Dell 8600
SXGA Display
64mb nVidia Go 5200
512mb
XP Pro (SP1)
Thanks,
garnoman
