[annabell]

Hi there,

hope you can help me! My 9 1/2 yr old has re-set the monitor settings on the computer in his room......he thinks he set the monitor to go from a black screen to normal screen once the computer came to the password log-in......only problem is it does not work. We have a black screen on the monitor and it doesn't change. Not sure if he has messed with anything else, or if the computer is not getting to the log in part.

Is there anyway of making the monitor live instead of black? Any magic way of overriding the monitor settings? I know it is a big ask, especially when he cannot exactly remember what it was that he altered!!!

All help would be greatly appreciated, at the moment we have useless computer and a very angry mother.

The montior has power, and it seems that the monitor is going into standby mode after start-up as the power light goes from green to orange after a time

Please help save my son!!! (from me)

Many thanks in advance, the frustrated mum..

[Advertisements]

The first thing you should do is get to safe mode. This will tell you if the screen will work at all. You may have damaged the video card( or on-board display) to where you have no pictures at all. If you have no picture in safe mode i would then switch to a different video card and see if that works. You also could have damaged the monitor by setting the refresh rate too high. The only way to fix this if the monitor has been damaged is to replace the monitor.

To get into safe mode you keep hitting the F8 key on the keyboard while the computer is booting up.Once there you will have a choice of

normal
Logged(\bootlog.txt)
safe mode
step by step confirmination
command prompt only
safemode command prompt only

You will move down to the 3rd one( safe mode) by using the arrow keys to highlight safe mode in BLUE, and then hitting the enter key. It will take a little while to boot up and you will have the word "SAFE" in all 4 corners of the screen. Once there you will go into the control panel and then Display. There you will see what the settings are. If possible try setting all the settings to the "DEFAULT" settings. There you can find the refresh rate and try setting it to 60 or 70 hertz.

If this works at all you may be able to reset the display for a better picture without going too high. let us know what happens here.

SRX660

[SRX660]

The first thing you should do is get to safe mode. This will tell you if the screen will work at all. You may have damaged the video card( or on-board display) to where you have no pictures at all. If you have no picture in safe mode i would then switch to a different video card and see if that works. You also could have damaged the monitor by setting the refresh rate too high. The only way to fix this if the monitor has been damaged is to replace the monitor.

To get into safe mode you keep hitting the F8 key on the keyboard while the computer is booting up.Once there you will have a choice of

normal
Logged(\bootlog.txt)
safe mode
step by step confirmination
command prompt only
safemode command prompt only

You will move down to the 3rd one( safe mode) by using the arrow keys to highlight safe mode in BLUE, and then hitting the enter key. It will take a little while to boot up and you will have the word "SAFE" in all 4 corners of the screen. Once there you will go into the control panel and then Display. There you will see what the settings are. If possible try setting all the settings to the "DEFAULT" settings. There you can find the refresh rate and try setting it to 60 or 70 hertz.

If this works at all you may be able to reset the display for a better picture without going too high. let us know what happens here.

SRX660

[annabell]

Thankyou SRX660!

I have tried getting into safemode but no success as yet. We disconected the monitor and it showed the message "no signal" so the monitor does display so to speak. Does showing this message mean that the video card is not damaged or is that just wishfull thinking?

Any other suggestions for getting into safemode? I will continue to try, and will keep checking for a reply from you.

Many thanks, annabell

[SRX660]

OK, this next test will tell you the direction you need to go in. If possible use another computer to make a boot floppy disk. Use this disk to see of you can get any thing on the monitor at all. he boot disk loads a DOS operating system that is text only( letters on a black screen). If you cannot get anything on the monitor you then need to hook the monitor up to another computer to test it and see if it works OK. If the monitor works OK on another computer it is time to replace the video card.

You can get boot floppy software to make the disk here.

http://freepctech.co.../files010.shtml

You have not given me any information on the computer so i can tell what kind of display you have. It may be on-board video or it may be a video card. A video card will not have the monitor cable plugin socket near the other sockets in the back of the computer but instead it will be down below where there are slots for other cards.

heres 2 examples

on-board

http://www.viaarena......grade 006.jpg

video card (halfway down page, "consider your monitor")

http://www.popularme...631.html?page=4

Depending on the information you give me i can explain how to change your video card to get it to work. You may have to buy a video card. Again i need to know what type of computer and any information you have to make a decision on what kind of video card you will need.

SRX660