Black screen on startup

[xpatate]

I was using my pc for 1 years withou any problem, I was watching a DVD when the PC freezed up. When I reboot (winxp sp2) the windows splash screen appear then the screen come black. I know the boot up sequence continue correctly because I hear normal sounds.

I tried to use the windows repair without success. I reinstall the whole thing, I was back on track but after installing SP2, my router, my modem and a couple of other things, I had to reboot a couple of time, and after 4-5 reboots, same problem.... grrrrrrrr

If I boot in VGA mode, everything's fine until I go to control panel and change a setting. If I change 640X480 to a cheap 800X600 or from 8 to 16 bits or even when I change the refresh rate from 30 to 60 hz, to screen come black and the power lignt on the screen come orange which mean that the monitor no longer receive a signal from the PC.

I use and old Dell 19 inch 1226H screen with an ATI radeon 9600. I use the default 9600 driver provided by windows. I use no specific driver for the monitor (windows generic monitor).

any idea ?

[pcschrottie]

It sounds like a hardware-problem of your video-card. Did you overclock it?

[xpatate]

Yeah I thought about a hardware problem but When I reinstalled Windows from scratch, I ran without any problem in 1024X768@32 bits for a couple of reboots...

[pcschrottie]

for a couple of reboots...

Could be a temperature problem due to OC. Do you have, by coincidence, an onboard-videocard on your mainboard? Or an old one from another PC, so you could do a test?

[xpatate]

Yep, good idea, I have an old all-in-wonder 8Mb, I will pop the card in to see if this is going to work.

But, up to now, when this problem append, It still present even if I shutoff the power for an hour, this make me think that this is mot a temperature problem. Also, the only way I found so far to solve the problem is to reinstall Windows, so I guess the problem is software...

[pcschrottie]

What you also can do in case of temperature problems is to open the computer-case (remove the side-piece) for a while so the temp inside the case won't get so high. Then see if the problem still occurs.

Michael

[xpatate]

Hi guys, thanks for the reply,

I found the problem: I had 2 monitors tied to my ATI 9600 card, Don't ask me why, one year after the installation, this is the first time I see this, the signal swap between both monitor. Because I don't usually open both monitors, I didn't realize that this was the problem. So, I just unplugged my main monitor and plug it in the second slot and everything's ok !

Thanks