No video at boot, will then work with a reset

[dewakin]

Motherboard is a K7ASA with an 800Mhz AMD processor and 128MB PC100 RAM. When you turn PC on, everything comes on but there is no video. Sounds like it is booting in the background. If you press the reset button, video will come up.

I have reseated process, AGP video card, and RAM. PC is 3 years old and has always worked fine until a few weeks ago.

Any ideas? Thanks

Dave W

[gambler2611]

if i was you i would run it in dos for a little while and revert to reinstalling windows. I know that this is the last thing anybody wants to do but this sounds like the drivers of the card have packed up for some reason. I would reinstall windows and before doing ANYTHING i would browse for new drivers for the card.

[dewakin]

I don't think windows is the culpret - I have booted from a floppy and I get the same problem. I will put a windows 2K HD in it and see if it works though. It currently has win98 for and OS

[J-Excel]

Can't be Windows if you get nothing at all. The BIOS stuff shows up before the Windows drivers are loaded. Might be the vid card BIOS but I doubt it. Does it do this only when your computer is booting cold? Like if you run it a while, shut it down all the way (turn the PS off) then boot does it work?

My PC never boots when it's cold. Doesn't boot at all. I have to turn in on for a minute or so then hit the reset. My suspicion in my case is cheap memory.

[dewakin]

hot/cold -- it doesn't matter. Turn it on, nothing, hit reset and all is fine. I have some other RAM I am goinf to ry in it as well.

[DoctorReno]

Perplexing problem...... picking straw outta my ass here, but it sounds like your monitor doesn't detect a video signal until you restart. I know on many of my machines that from a cold start it takes several seconds later for my monitors little LED to go from amber to green when I cold start vs. hitting reboot button or Ctrl/Alt Delete but why you get no video from cold start and do on restart... baffeling.

I'm curious, in your device manger does the correct monitor show up under monitor? How about the correct display adaptor?

Again this is a straw/ass suggestion... have you tried deleting the monitor and display adaptor from the device mgr and having them redetected at the next restart?

[wju425]

Your problem may be the monitor. The monitor has to support several screen modes and may start giving you troubles in certain modes. Dos uses screen mode 0 which is text mode. A monitor should always defaults to that mode. Windows uses screen mode 13 (I think) in 640 by 480. That's the bitmapping mode. Some applications will use other modes. Hitting the reset button forced the detections.

\o/ Billy

[DoctorReno]

Thanks for clarifying what I was trying to think Billy. In my post was leaning/suggesting towards monitor issue but didn't know technically why.

[wju425]

You're welcome. I found that out while studying for programming in dos and basic some years ago. I wasn't so sure my memory served me right but you get the idea.

\o/ Billy

[DanU]

Are you getting any POST beeps when you power up?