Topic: Monitor / GFX Cards problems?!

[David_G]

Hey Guys/Gals!

Long time since I last visited this forum, but everytime I'm stuck I always end up here and you kind souls always manage to help me

Okay here goes...

I recently bought myself a new Processor, Motherboard, Memory, PSU and Graphics card which believe it or not.. works perfectly! No problems at all. However the problem is that the PC that I have upgraded from has suddenly decided to break.

Specs:
Athlon XP 2800+
MSi KT4 Pro
512mb RAM
GeForce 6600GT
500 Watt PSU

Bearing in mind this pc worked perfectly for a long time, all I have done is move it into another case and now it doesn't work :X.

The Story. After finishing with my new pc I rebuilt my older one and turned it on. However when I did this the monitor didn't come on, it stays on standbye as if it isnt recieving a signal. I checked everything was in correctly, cleaned it out etc but to no avail, the monitor didn't want to come on. So I put in a really old GFX card (3D Prophet 4500) thinking that perhaps my 6600GT had been damaged in the move. And it worked! Hurrah!

I then realised that I had a slightly older GFX card lying around, a GF4 MX440 so I popped that it and the monitor didnt work. The monitor I was testing with was quite an old one so I tried my newer one and the GF4 worked! Out of curiosity I then tried the 4500 with the new monitor and that didn't work. So I put the GF4 back in and that didnt work! I changed monitors back to the older one and it worked!

I have probably confused you because I'm just as confused. What is happening is that I can find no relationship between which monitor and which GFX works 100% of the time. Sometimes it just doesnt work, then without changing anything, and unplugging everything and leaving it two minutes, replugging everything in (WITHOUT CHANGING GFX or MONITOR) it works!

It doesn't seem logical at all because there is no correlation between GFX card/monitor/time left unplugged etc.

I can't think of anything that could be the problem externally because I was trying it with all my CD-ROMS and Harddrives unplugged...

PLEASE HELP ME GUYS(GALS)

:DDDDDDDDD

dave!!!!!

[Simon]

Having experienced a similar problem with a PC I was involved with recently, I'm wondering if the motherboard may have been damaged during the move between cases?  It only takes a hairline crack to make things go pear shaped.  The main symptoms you describe, i.e., the monitor not firing up some of the time, is the same, only this one usually does start OK after several reboots.  Do you get a beep when you start it up?  This was another thing with the one I mentioned.  No beep, no monitor.  Beep, monitor.  All the hardware has been changed in this PC, and by that process of elimination, only the motherboard can be the culprit now.  Not saying yours is the same, just pointing out the similarities.

Hopefully someone more expert than me will be along to help you soon.

Oh, and welcome back!  Can I ask who you were before? 

[Sandra]

It could be that its struggling to find the correct drivers for the correct card.

You should be able to start up in safe mode reagrdless of which card and drivers are installed.
I would start up in safe mode and uninstall the all the gfx card drivers from inside the device manager and then shut down.
Fit the card that you want to run in that pc and then start up and it should find and install the correct drivers.

If you want to try the other card/s then uninstall the drivers from device manager in normal windows before shutting down and replacing the card.

[David_G]

I think my other account was something like DaveyG, DavidG or Davey_Gee etc

Thanks for the quick replies btw!

Simon: yeah it does sound very similar, sometimes it does beep. I never tried restarting though, I just presumed that if it didnt work first time it never would. I'm going to try another motherboard and hopefully that will work

Sandra: Does it matter about windows drivers? I had the Hard Drive disconnected and the monitor doesnt come on showing the POST or BIOS things!

Thanks again!

DAve!

[Sandra]

Sorry dave, I missed reading the bit about the hard drives being disconnected
 
Of course that scratches my idea.

Reset the bios to its default stage by using the clear CMOS jumper and see what happens.
It may be that its been set to something other than VGA mode before replacing the GFX cards.

Once you can get into the bios screen then set it for the correct initial display that corresponds to the GFX card you are using.