newbie needs advice - no signal to monitor!

[showhost]

Anyone offer some sage advice? I built a system 6 months ago and it's been working fine (Win XP with Gainward GeForce 3 Ti200 video card). Suddenly it started acting up and the monitor wouldn't display an image (just stayed black). The monitor power comes on okay but it doesn't get any signal from the computer.

I've tried the monitor on another computer and it works just fine so it's not the monitor.
I've also tried reseating the graphics card to no avail. Has my new card gone kaplooey on me? Is their any way to test it or know for sure? What recourse do I have with Gainward (I bought card from Newegg).

Thanks in advance for your help...

Showhost

 

[cmdrdredd]

do you see the post screen when you startup? If not then yes it's probably a bad card. Try another...if you get the post screen try booting into safe mode and remove the drivers for the card and reinstall them.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: showhost
Anyone offer some sage advice? I built a system 6 months ago and it's been working fine (Win XP with Gainward GeForce 3 Ti200 video card). Suddenly it started acting up and the monitor wouldn't display an image (just stayed black). The monitor power comes on okay but it doesn't get any signal from the computer.

I've tried the monitor on another computer and it works just fine so it's not the monitor.
I've also tried reseating the graphics card to no avail. Has my new card gone kaplooey on me? Is their any way to test it or know for sure? What recourse do I have with Gainward (I bought card from Newegg).

Thanks in advance for your help...

Showhost

You said you tried the monitor on another computer but did you try your video card on that computer as well?

 

[showhost]

Guys...

I do not see a POST screen. The screen simply stays unchanged (black) with apparently no signal going to it from the vid card. The cable and monitor are both good as I tried them both on other computer -- a 6 year-old PC with fairly primitive hardware.

Can I swap video cards between them with this much difference in age and power to test it out that way? Is any video card appropriate for any computer configuration and thereby interchangeable?

Someone on another BBS suggested resetting the CMOS. What will doing this accomplish? If the card is still good, will this resolve the problem for some reason? Also, won't this change all CMOS settings I set when I first built the box -- or am I confusing CMOS with BIOS?

Thanx for any advice you can share...

Showhost

 

[Slappy00]

Can I swap video cards between them with this much difference in age and power to test it out that way?

a 6yr old computer may not have an agp interface so the gainward gf3 will not work in that computer

Someone on another BBS suggested resetting the CMOS. What will doing this accomplish? If the card is still good, will this resolve the problem for some reason?

maybe, but probably not. The person that gave you that advice musta thought that you might have a misconfigured motherboard. If you have not messed with the BIOS lately, AND you see a normal sequence during bootup i.e. one beep and the various drive lights lighting up and the sound of your OS loading then your problem is most likely linked to your video card crapping out on you. Now heres where I have to speculate a bit, I think that if your VC is completely dead the motherboard might or might not boot, some MoBo do not require a VC be installed to boot, while others do, so you might get a beeping error or no bootup at all depending on your mobo. Also maybe the card does regester itself during POST and the mobo just thinks that "everything is fine" and continues its bootup procdure.

In short If your computer bootsup properly then resetting your BIOS will probably do you little good, I wouldn't do it untill it was a last choice.. and yes it will reset all your values to defaults.

 

[showhost]

Slappy...

The computer definitely seems to be booting up fully. There is a LED read-out on the board itself which indicates that it is going thru a full and proper boot up.

You mentioned BIOS resetting. Is that the same as resetting the CMOS by moving the jumper on the motherboard to a different position then moving it back?

Isn't it odd that a VC would crap out after six months? Don't components usually crap out in the first 3 days or so and if they last that long they generally last for years?

Not sure waht an AGP interface is exactly but on my old system the mobo is an ASUS P2L97 AGP Motherboard and my VC is a Matrox Millenium. Can this card go into my newly built box and vice-versa to diagnose problem? My new box is made up of:


CPU: Athlon XP 1700+ / 266 FSB Athlon XP

OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows XP Professional Edition

HARD DRIVE: Seagate Barracuda IV; 40GB 7200 rpm; Model #ST340016A;

MOBO: Epox 8KHA+ VIA KT266A 200/266 Mobo for AMD XP Socket A;

MEMORY: Crucial 256MB DDR PC2100 / 184-Pin DIMM

VIDEO CARD:
Gainward/Cardexpert GeForce 3 Ti200 64MB (NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 GPU)


Thanks again...

Showhost

 

[CubicZirconia]

You mentioned BIOS resetting. Is that the same as resetting the CMOS by moving the jumper on the motherboard to a different position then moving it back?

Yes it is. On the 8kha+ you need to move the jumper, press the power button, move the jumper back, then start the pc up again. The bios should be reset.

 

[Mem]

Isn't it odd that a VC would crap out after six months? Don't components usually crap out in the first 3 days or so and if they last that long they generally last for years?

The truth is it can happen anytime,I had PSU got faulty after 9 months,monitor go faulty after 6 weeks,printer after 2 months,CPU go faulty after 6 weeks,you see my point .

 

[showhost]

Update for anyone following this thread:

I swapped the video cards in my new and old systems and the outcome surprised me. First, I discovered that the Matrox Millenium was installed in one of the PCI slots on my old system and is a smaller (shorter) card than the GeForce. This confused me as the GeForce is installed in the brown AGP slot on the Epox mobo. So I just chanced it and interchanged them, installing them in the corresponding slots as above.

Result: The old Matrox Millenium card in the new system worked fine. Monitor came on and XP booted right up. The thing that surprised and confused me is that the GeForce in the old system (which I thought had crapped out and died) actually DID give me an image on the monitor! It went through the various POST operations but then stopped with an error message that stating that the computer couldn't be booted and requested I insert the start-up disk. Is there some reason why the GeForce graphics card would keep this computer from completing its boot up?

More importantly though, what I thought was a dead graphics card now seems in fact to send a signal just fine in my old system but doesn't do squat in the new system (which it worked fine in for 6 months).

Bottom line: I don't know what the heck to make of this!

Any thoughts?

Thanx...

Showhost



CPU: Athlon XP 1700+
OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows XP Pro
HARD DRIVE: Seagate Barracuda IV;
MOBO: Epox 8KHA+ VIA KT266A
MEMORY: Crucial 256MB DDR PC2100
VIDEO CARD:
Gainward/Cardexpert GeForce 3 Ti200 64MB (NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200 GPU)

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: showhost
Update for anyone following this thread:

It went through the various POST operations but then stopped with an error message that stating that the computer couldn't be booted and requested I insert the start-up disk. Is there some reason why the GeForce graphics card would keep this computer from completing its boot up?

This is probably just a driver issue.

More importantly though, what I thought was a dead graphics card now seems in fact to send a signal just fine in my old system but doesn't do squat in the new system (which it worked fine in for 6 months).

My guess based on everything you have done is that the AGP port on your new MB is bad. But, first I would try and put the GF3 back in and make sure it is seated properly and try again.

 

[Shifty]

Just for the sake of testing.

Why don't you try set up dual monitors using both cards and see what happens. See if windows still recognises that the gf3 is still in your computer. If the agp port is dead, windows will not be able to recognize it, you should probably ditch the nvidia driver, any folders, and temp files first.

 

[chizow]

Its not a driver issue, as drivers don't even come into play until you get into the windows desktop. During POST and boot-up, all video devices are set to standard VGA. Thats why you can get an image with no drivers installed, or switch between cards to trouble shoot.

It could very well be a power issue. Newer cards draw more power, and I've definitely had weird things happen (out of scan range messages on boot-up) on my old PSU and older systems where I tried running faster video cards. If you are getting into POST and can mess with the BIOS, its either a BIOS setting, inadequate PSU or voltage to the AGP slot, or a mobo issue. Make sure you have BIOS set to boot AGP card as primary, set AGP to 1x and lower your AGP aperture. Turn off fast-writes or sideband addressing or anything else like that. If you can tweak your AGP voltage, try that as well. Also check your power settings in the BIOS and make sure your rails are producing voltages within spec.

Chiz

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: chizow
Its not a driver issue, as drivers don't even come into play until you get into the windows desktop. During POST and boot-up, all video devices are set to standard VGA. Thats why you can get an image with no drivers installed, or switch between cards to trouble shoot.

If you understad his full post he did post and could not get into windows due to errors. This is def. a driver issue.