Dell 2407fpw slow on start up.

Leporello · 10 Mar 2007 at 17:59

Dear Friends,

I've just taken delivery of a 2407fpw which I like very much but I have a problem. When I switch the monitor on the green light comes on but after a few seconds goes into power saving mode and doesn't come on until the system reaches the Windows log on screen. This means that I can't get into my BIOS settings on the Dell. Fortunately I have two monitors connected so my second monitor does show the normal boot menu.

I've read through the manual in detail but can find no clues as to how I might get my Dell to come out of powersaving mode fast enough to allow me to see the start up screen.

Any comments?

Thanks.

QuantumXP · 10 Mar 2007 at 18:07

It sounds like your other monitor is connected to the output your gfx card treats as primary. There is nothing wrong with the Dell 2407 itself, its just not getting a signal from the graphics card until windows is loaded.

fish99 · 10 Mar 2007 at 19:52

I would try disconnecting the 2nd display and booting up with just the 2407 connected, and see if the bios/bootup screens show then. I seem to remember last time I had two screens connected I could see the bios screen on both of them.

Sir Random · 10 Mar 2007 at 20:15

Leporello said:
Dear Friends,

I've just taken delivery of a 2407fpw which I like very much but I have a problem. When I switch the monitor on the green light comes on but after a few seconds goes into power saving mode and doesn't come on until the system reaches the Windows log on screen. This means that I can't get into my BIOS settings on the Dell. Fortunately I have two monitors connected so my second monitor does show the normal boot menu.

I've read through the manual in detail but can find no clues as to how I might get my Dell to come out of powersaving mode fast enough to allow me to see the start up screen.

Any comments?

Thanks.

Congrats on the new monitor!

Did you get it from OcUK, and if so, is it an A04 revision?

Leporello · 11 Mar 2007 at 01:45

Yes it is an A04 revision and no, I didn't buy it from OCUK but from a well known auction site for £470 inc VAT, next day delivery and a four year Dell warranty.

Leporello · 15 Mar 2007 at 17:19

Just in case anyone else hits this problem. I solved it simply by swapping my tft cables around. The other issue I noticed when the cables were in the wrong position was that I got some feint noise lines across the screen when I opened a window or picture. Swapping the cables around also solved this. I had previously thought that it did not matter which monitor was plugged into which DVI connector.

Corasik · 15 Mar 2007 at 17:27

Friend of mine had this problem with a Geforce 6800GT, it didnt have any output in text mode at all, so nothing on screen until windows booted, and if you went fullscreen text mode, it just shut down again.

Tried for an hour to sort it, but ended up hooking up the dells VGA input to the second port on the graphics card, so for bootup/text mode the monitor used the VGA input, but once windows as running it switched to DVI.

Worked fine.

Wierd thing is, the next day it worked perfectly, and the dvi output was working even in text mode. We never found out what was wrong, but apparently it did happen again, just as when I set it up, it didnt work for an evening, but next day was back to normal.

Anyway perhaps using a DVI-VGA adaptor on the second port, and hooking that to the dell's vga input will give you a way to access bios if/when the graphics card is in a bad mood.