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Monitor not detecting PC on boot.

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4 replies

by blackx

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I have tested this issue with 2 monitors. When I boot up my PC the monitor appears to remain in standby mode (ie. the power light continues to flash on/off). The system appears to boot correctly as I see the keyboard react and I can hear the boot sequence (drive A: check, drive D: check). All is powered on.
Last night I gave up after testing the system on the 2 monitors as mentioned. Today when I power the computer on the issue has been resolved with both monitors. This problem happens randomly and I can see no pattern to this. The PC is relatively new (less than 1 month). From my observations the problem seems to stem from video card which is an onboard video card. Has anyboday else encountered a similar problem?
Is this a known issue? Is there a work around to this problem?
Any advice appreciated...

4 replies

by csmith

The onboard video is not very good on most motherboards.
There are a lot of quality control issues lately.
Seems to have something to do with the brutal competition in this segment.
Now the good part.
This problem is easy to troubleshoot, because you can plug in any old (Known Good)video card that you have in spare parts.
You probably will not notice any large change in performance.
Make sure you disable the onboard video chip first.
If the intermittent failures go away that's it.
Regards, Chris

by sgt_shultz

depending on how old your system is you may not be able to effectively disable the onboard video...but having said that it sure does sound like bad on-board graphics controller and congrats for troubleshooting it to that point. way to go. next time you have problem, try booting into safe mode. what you describe tells me graphics controller ok in text mode but having trouble switching to graphics mode. that can be a function of the driver. worth trying visiting mfg website for latest drivers and any info on this issue. set video to Standard SVGA in Device Manager. see if fixes problem. if not, uninstall current drivers (peek in add/remove programs to see what stuff came in) and reinstall newest ones. consider flashing motherboard bios. and if you have problem in safe mode and with standard vga drivers says to me definitely bad hardware. check to see what kind of available slots. pci or isa or agp. (i wouldn't use agp slot if i had pci slot available). then go buy cheap card that will fit slot and says compatible with your os. maybe from tiger.com or buy.com. but see if you can disable on-board video first. if not might be time for new motherboard.

by w2ktechman

I have seen a similar problem with an onboard card. I flashed the video bios and it worked fine. Many cards do not have this feature though, so look it up with your MB vendor. Flashing the video bios will require at least a floppy disk & drive.

by rind

An intermittant problem on boot points to a hardware problem. You said the pc is new, do you have a warranty? Take at back to the salesman asap.

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