Display Problem At Startup?

Nekio

Nekio

{Gilfinder}
I had left my PC (I run Vista) on overnight and woke up this morning to the display showing hibernation mode, per the usual. However, when I moved the mouse around/punched keys, it didn't pop up into powered mode. Eventually I gave up and manually restarted the PC. Upon bootup it ran filechk and found some errors, and corrected them.

After completing the check, I opened Windows in normal mode. The logo popped up, and the chime signaled that the password input screen was about to come up. At this point, the display enters hibernation mode again. Move the mouse around, no go. I actually can type my password in at this screen and I'll hear the second chime acknowledging that the password has been accepted and Windows is opening, but the display is still "off".

I rebooted and started in safe mode, and tried to restore back a couple days, since I recently installed a trial of Microsoft Money. Everything runs fine in safe mode. However, none of the restore points I try work, and I get an error upon startup saying:

"System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed. Details: The restore point was damaged or was deleted during the restore."

Any suggestions? Should I just keep trying different restore points further back until one works? I've never had that problem before with Restore.
 
Two quick things to try. One open your computer pull the video card out of its agp/pcix slot and reseating it. If that doesn't work while in safe mode uninstall the video driver and just reboot. You computer should display using default drivers on next reboot. Then just install the drivers again. Best to just start off here and see what happens then go from there if it doesn't fix it.
 
I'm trying to download a new display driver. I'm not sure if it's possible the driver is corrupted if it can display the lower resolution in safe mode, but I needed to update it anyway so I figured I'd give it a shot.

*EDIT* Didn't see your post before mine, Heie. It sounds like Windows might use separate default vid drivers in safe mode? If that's the case, I bet my driver is corrupted. Hopefully this fixes it.
 
Yes. Safe mode uses windows default drivers only. It does not use any of the drivers you install to make your computer run.
 
New driver didn't fix the problem. Though, this time instead of putting the monitor into powersave mode the monitor stayed on, but with just a black screen and mouse pointer where I normally would input my profile password on startup.

Is it still worth it to try to re-seat the card physically? Once we start messing with hardware I've crept outside the realm of my limited PC knowledge.
 
I would try reseating it just to make sure that something isn't loose. At this point it sounds like that isn't it but it is always best to start with something easy like reseating the card just to make sure that isn't it. Also do you have an onboard video card? If you do you might want to remove your video card and see if it starts up normally using the onboard video.
 
I don't know of any other video cards. The only display adapter in my device manager is for the GeForce 7300 I just downloaded new drivers for. If it makes any difference, again, everything works fine in safe mode. It's only when I try to boot up in normal mode that I have problems.

*EDIT* How do I tell if the card is onboard or separate without opening the casing?
 
Does the back of your computer have 2 ports that the cable from your monitor can fit onto? One will of course be your video card. If you have another one then that is your onboard video. 99% of onboard video cards are disabled when you install a video card into an expandable slot. It is almost sounding like your video card might be dead. Hard to tell but it is starting to soudn like you might need a new video card. If you have an onbaord video it would be much easier to figure this out. Or if you have another video card you could swap out for just for testing. Another thing to try is boot up to safe mode and uninstall the video driver completely and see if windows works fine not in safe mode with just default drivers.
 
Only one video port. I'll try a full uninstall of the nvidia drivers and see if that works. If I need a new video card it's not the end of the world... I wanted to upgrade anyway. They're not typically more than a couple hundred bucks even for the best cards, ya?
 
After full uninstall, Windows boots up in normal mode fine, but at a low resolution (I presume because it's using the default drivers). Upon startup it's recognizing my video card and prompting me to install drivers for it, so I guess I'll try that again since it still seems like the problem is with the video card and/or its drivers.
 
Lightly apply thermal paste on your forehead. Don't over do it.

Now headbutt your monitor. This should resolve the problem.

What monitor and model do you have?
 
It's a Dell 14"? flatscreen.

So I opened it up and found a couple things:
1. There IS an on-board vid card, I just couldn't see it from the outside as the port was covered up. It's an NVIDIA chip, but again I don't see it listed on my device manager so not sure which it is.
2. After reseating the other video card, there was no change.

So to recap:
*Monitor works fine up until windows loads, in safe mode, and in normal mode if I use the default Windows drivers.
*System restore doesn't fix the problem.
*Updating the drivers doesn't fix the problem.
*The card isn't loose.

Conclusion? Again, I tinker with gall bladders, not with computers, so this is not my expertise. Logic still dictates that I'm looking at buying a new video card. Is that an accurate assessment?
 
Hmm. This is bad news. Just tried running FFXI both in safe mode and normal mode-minus-drivers and neither worked. When it tries to open FFXI itself after logging through POL it says that DirectX can't initialize due to system specs.

Can I run it through the onboard adapter?
 
Yeah. Pretty sure your video card is hosed. Try removing your video card and use the onboard video until you get your new card. That should allow you to play use your basic functions of your computer and 11 should work just fine.
 
Probably won't work, but try starting in safe mode. Then go to Power Management, set Hibernate to never. Turn the monitor off physically for a few minutes along with your CPU. Then boot up everything again. Cross fingers, don't look, pray. If this method works, beat your computer with a bat. If the method doesn't work: hahahaha.
 
Oh make sure standby mode is set to never or something similar.
 
Since I've been on a PC upgrade binge, I figured I might as well add some memory. If you've been out of the loop, I decided on upgrading my video card after my old one burnt out. However, this required that I also upgrade my PSU. After those two upgrades I'll be using a 750W power supply with more connectors than I'll ever find a use for, and a 4850 Radeon 512MB from ASUS. (Thanks again for the help, Alu!)

I know memory is cheap nowadays, so I figured I might as well finish boosting my performance. I own a Dell Dimension E521 and run an AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core processor 2.6gHz with only 1GB of RAM currently, and with Vista 32bit I sit at 50% memory usage while idling. I plan on picking up another gig or two of RAM since it's so cheap.

My question is: how do I know if a particular memory is compatible with my PC? I'm pretty sure I'm currently using DDR2, but how can I check? Sorry for being such a computer noob... feel free to post pictures of rashes for all the trouble. :)

*EDIT*
Found this on the Dell website http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?s=dhs&c=us&l=en&cs=19&k=dimension+521+ram&cat=all&x=0&y=0

Also found crucial.com and ran their system scanner. The results: http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/viewscanbyid.aspx?id=E1F6BF1B31D926C3

And then this on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145098

neweggs memory configure suggested this... for $26 I'm not sure how I convinced myself not to get more memory sooner. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231044
 
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