PC booting fine but can't see screen when Vista starts?

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Hi,

Switched on my PC this morning and it started booting up as normal.

Got to the Vista loading screen and you can see the loading bar moving back and forth as per usual.

Just before it gets to the point where the little "jingle" plays and the Vista icon should come up, the screen goes black. I can hear the jingle playing and the noise the desktop makes when it comes up. So it would appear to be booting as normal but I have some sort of display issue.

Any ideas?. My system spec is in my sig, running Vista Ultimate 32bit.

I can boot to Safe mode no problem and in Device Manager, my XT1900 is listed there as running the Microsoft XT1900 drivers.

If I uninstall the XT1900 from within the Device Manager, the PC will boot successfully into Normal Mode. Upon doing this a few minutes after the desktop has came up, there is a balloon at the bottom of the page telling me that Windows is installing display device drivers and then it tells me to restart the PC. If I go into the Device Manager before I restart the system, again it is listing the default Vista ATI XT1900 drivers in there.

Upon restarting the system it once agains fails to show me the desktop and the black screen comes back even though I can hear it booting up normally.

I have downloaded the latest ATI Cat 9.1 drivers and have after the Windows ATI drivers install themselves, tried installing the full Cat drivers then restarting. But no joy - still get the black screen and have to once again remove the drivers to get it to boot into normal mode.

This is driving me nuts!!!

Would seriously appreciate any advice and assistance.
 
i would boot into safe mode and uninstall drivers then use driver cleaner pro to remove all remnants of old drivers before installing new ones.
 
Will try that.

Its strange. To all intents and purposes its like even though the ATI Cat drivers are installed successfully, upon restarting its like it can't load the drivers in and throws a wobbly.

The other situation I've seen this happening with is when someone tries to start their PC on a monitor that cannot handle the res their display adapter is set at. But I haven't changed anything related to that, my monitors native res is 1440x900 and I assume any newly detected graphics card and newly installed drivers would initially start up with a lower res than that anyway?
 
I have the same type of card and with the latest drivers i get the same issues too.What i have found is i beleive that the new drivers swap the primary and secondary monitor outputs
I had a play after i twigged what it was and used the second display(50" plasma) to swap the order around
I think that if you swap your monitor connections on the card around it should display correctly
 
ANDARIAL said:
I have the same type of card and with the latest drivers i get the same issues too.What i have found is i beleive that the new drivers swap the primary and secondary monitor outputs
I had a play after i twigged what it was and used the second display(50" plasma) to swap the order around
I think that if you swap your monitor connections on the card around it should display correctly
Click to expand...

You mean remove the connector from one of the inputs on the card and plug it into the other one?. But surely if it was doing what you mention I would not even get any display when booting up?. At present everything boots fine and I can see the POST and the Microsoft loader screen, it's only when the desktop is about to come up ( when the circular Microsoft logo appears with the jingle/tune ) that the display vanishes.

I will give it a go but I have had no issues with this previously. It just happened all of a sudden this morning. Been running with the 8.12 drivers since the tail end of last year with no issues at all so I'm stumped at why it decided to play up this morning with no warning.:confused:


**EDIT** This get's curiouser!!!

Decided to bite the bullet and backup/reformat in case it was some bizarre driver/registry/Windows issue ( was long overdue a reformat anyway ).

However now during the installation of Vista, it goes through everything no problem during the setup and I can see everything on the screen. Then when it gets to the "Preparing to start Windows for the fiirst time" , after that message on screen, I get a white mouse pointer arrow in the center of the screen which I can move around and then just as it is about to open up the next stage/desktop the PC restarts.

Its like the X1900 can handle the basic screen displays but as soon as it goes to anything higher resolution wise, it throws a wobbly.

Obviously I can't complete the install in Safe Mode so I'm now left with a dead PC that I cant even get into safe mode with as the OS hasn't finished installing!!! AAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!:mad:
 
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Sounds similar to something that happened to me. Does Ctrl + Alt + Delete work normally? If so try opening the task manager and running explorer.
 
my issues were/are post and boot show as normal then when windows loads the gfx driver i assume it `swaps` gfx ports/connectors
Did you first try what i suggested?or maybe you could connect a second display to the other gfx connector?
 
Ryin said:
Sounds similar to something that happened to me. Does Ctrl + Alt + Delete work normally? If so try opening the task manager and running explorer.
Click to expand...

Not sure, will try that, thanks.


ANDARIAL said:
Did you first try what i suggested?or maybe you could connect a second display to the other gfx connector?
Click to expand...

I would try what you suggested m8, but can you elaborate on it a bit further?.

Are you saying just swap over the connection from the monitor to the other input on the card and then boot up?.:confused:
 
Nope, but I'm open to ideas!!

I will go try that now before I go out and buy a graphics card. :cool:

Why would it make any difference with only one stick of RAM in there instead of the 4 x 1Gb Geil ULL's I have sat in there just now?.:confused:
 
This gets weirder by the hour. :eek:

I just connected up an old 17" CRT Samsung monitor to the PC.

It booted up perfectly, allowing me to complete the fresh install of Vista.

Boots to desktop no problem at all, everything appears normal.

So disconnected the old monitor and connected up the 19" widescreen LCD again.

Same problem, gets to just when the desktop should come up and goes black and I get the "No Signal" message.

Aha!!! I'm thinking....."Faulty monitor perhaps?".

So toddled off downstairs and connected the monitor up to my old file server which is running a Leadtek A350TDH 6800 card.

Booted up fine to desktop with no issues at all!!! :confused: :eek:

So the monitor seems fine and the graphics card now seems fine, but they just wont play together!!!??.

I am totally baffled by this one now and have no idea what to do.:(
 
Does the graphics card have two DVI connectors? If so try the other one when you see the black screen, it could be it's sending the output to the unused DVI connector. Failing that connect both your CRT and the TFT and see if you can get dual desktop going and if so set the TFT output as primary and disable the CRT and reboot.

I highly doubt your graphics card is broken and hopefully the above should get everything working again.
 
More strangeness!!!

Plug old CRT monitor into PC.

Boots up fine to desktop.

Remove old CRT monitor connection from DVI adapter and plug in LCD flatscreen monitor and up comes the desktop on it.:eek:

Shut down PC and restart with LCD flatscreen still connected, you can hear it booting up to desktop but the screen goes black at that point.

Unplug the widescreen monitor and plug old CRT back in - desktop appears on CRT. Unplug CRT and plug LCD widescreen back in - desktop appears on LCD!!!!!

What the......????!!!!:confused:

*EDIT* Yes it does have two DVI connectors but I only have one DVI adapter here as the monitor doesn't have a direct DVI cable, just the usual VGA one which has always worked fine with the DVI adapter.
 
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My LCD had trouble displaying windows and swapping res getting into games. It was the LCD in my case. Since its been working fine and suddently throws a wobley then I would point the finger at the LCD. This could save you wasting money on a new gfx if its not the culprit.
 
But the thing is - the widescreen monitor works fine on my other PC!!!???.

And the graphics card works fine on the CRT monitor!!!???.

I am pretty sure it is some sort of issue with the DVI connections but I've tried swapping them about and it doesnt seem to help.

Getting close to taking the whole lot outside and setting it all on fire.:mad:
 
are you cahnging the res to 1440 before you restart? is the refresh rate picked up correctly in windows? I only tend to see this when you cant/arent displaying at the correct res (every time my mate updates his video drivers lol). Even if you only have one dvi>vga adaptor, once it turns "off" the tft you can then just move that onto the other output on the back of the card, and see if it has done as above, bit weird if it has tbh.
 
Gave up!!! :(

Finally decided enough was enough.

I think the Graphics card is fine but there was some sort of issue with the DVI swapping thing. Could not be bothered with the hassle anymore as I was getting to the stage where I was going to chuck it out the window. :rolleyes:

So nipped out and bought a Palit 512Mb 9800GTX+ this afternoon. Bargain from my local place with a little discount applied so got it for £100. :)

Just installed the card and everything is fine, boots to desktop with no issues which confirms what I suspected about the monitor being ok. No idea what was wrong with the card, I have a few bits and bobs lying here spare so might build up a quick test rig and chuck the card in it to see if it still does the same thing on a completely different board.

A very peculiar hardware issue, one that really had me tearing my hair out but at some point you have to say "enough is enough" and admit defeat.

Many thanks to all you guys for replying and giving advice, really appreciate it. :cool:

Cheers.
 
Ch3m1c4L said:
are you cahnging the res to 1440 before you restart? is the refresh rate picked up correctly in windows? I only tend to see this when you cant/arent displaying at the correct res (every time my mate updates his video drivers lol). Even if you only have one dvi>vga adaptor, once it turns "off" the tft you can then just move that onto the other output on the back of the card, and see if it has done as above, bit weird if it has tbh.
Click to expand...

I was setting the res to 800x600 and the refresh rate was getting picked up as 59mhz.

I know what you mean about the res being too high and sending the monitor bonkers, I have also seen this a good few times before. Which is why I decided to set the res at 800x600 when I could see the desktop on the old CRT monitor.

Swapping the DVI connector onto the outher output didn't make any difference, no. Really strange one to be honest!!!

All academic now since I've dug into the bank balance and plumped for the 9800GTX.

Looking forward to seeing how GTA IV and Mirrors Edge run on this system under the new card now compared to my auld trusty ( until yesterday....lol... ) X1900XTX.

Must update my sig below too.:p
 
should run nicely :), id say this problem was a good thing lol.

What i meant about the res, was that older flat screens have a minimum display res as well, like my mates two that wont do any res other than their native one of 1040 or 1280, meaning to reinstall his graphics drivers he has to use a crt :/

I laugh at him every time and tell him to stop being a cheapskate and buy a new monitor/pc
 
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