Odd video problem

[TheBrain77]

Sup all,

first some specs

opty 165
ati x1900xt (powercolor oem)
2gb ram (corsair)
asus a8r32-mvp
WD 74gb raptor
winxp

ok. so i got home after work on monday and turned on my system. I walked away for a bit and came back to a blank screen with the monitor light blinking. I was not sure how long i had been away so i figured it just went into sleep and was conserving power. I moved my mouse around and no response. So I reset my box and waited for it to restart.

What happend next was the xp splash screen displayed and then as the windows login was supposed to display. bam the blank screen hit again.

After seeing that happen i was not sure what caused the problem so i went ahead and booted into safe mode. Once there i removed the video drivers and reboot. Sure enough thats solved the problem and allowed me to enter windows. I proceeded to ati to get the latest video drivers and installed them. upon reboot i got a blank screen.

So not im thinking this is great. I found my original driver disk and repeated my steps in save mode. Upon reboot i removed the drivers and installed the old ones. blank screen on reboot.

So now im thinking greater.. I reinstalled windows after repartitioning the hard drive. Installed the original drivers. blank screen.

So now im thinking greater greater. I have attempted several different options and they all yield the same result.. a blank screen. What makes it even worse is that after instaling the drivers on my last attempt. I went into the device manager and noticed that the system was reporting that the drivers were incorrect for the device installed.

any advice? not sure where to go from here

-thebrain

 

[ianhellman]

Have you tried that monitor on another known working machine and tested your desired resolutions and refresh rates?

 

[wnied]

Try putting another videocard in the system and installing the drivers. If the computer works, you know its the videocard.

let me know how you make out.
~wnied~

 

[TheBrain77]

the system works in safe mode and after removing the ati drivers the system reboots with no problem.

while not using the ati drivers, I can adjsut the video resolution and frequency.

the blank screen only occurs after reinstalling the ati drivers(original and latest) and rebooting.

I have a spare system at home and I was going to try running the card on that system. I ran out of time last night because it was getting late. I will still try.

-thebrain

 

[TheBrain77]

No go. contacted powercolor tech support and will probably have to rma.

-thebrain

 

[TheBrain77]

Solved!

ok the tech support from powercolor suggested i update the north bridge drivers on my motherboard. Well I ran the driver install from asus on my board and it seemed to clear up the error with it saying it was the wrong driver. however it still sent it to a no signal screen..

So I was rumbling through my box of parts and i found the analog video cable that came with my lcd.. I hooked it up and added the dvi convertor..

BAM it works..

I never thought it was the cable becuase it worked fine without the ati driver..

anyhow stranger things have happend.. its working now.. i guess dvi cables can go bad

-thebrain.

 

[hanoverphist]

i dont think it was tghe cable itself, my ATI card has issues with the dvi connection to my monitor occasionally. it will black screen just like you said, and ill try everything under the damn sun to get it working and give up. the next day, it will work perfectly. ive replaced the cable 4 times now and it will still do it occasionally. i rolled back to a 2005 driver that isnt even for the card i have and it works fine. i think its a newer update they did and dont want to go back and check/ fix