[Dux Bellorum]

I need help very quickly with this issue. I went to turn on the computer this morning, and it got as far as the Windows XP loading screen before simply going black. When I loaded Windows in safe mode, the monitor entry in Device Manager didn't exist. Now, I recently installed a Radeon 9000 graphics card, and suspecting this might be the cause, I reinstalled my GeForce 440, whereupon the program loaded up properly until it came time to install the drivers for the GeForce. Once again, after loading, Windows wouldn't load up to the main screen; I suspect that the drivers are the cause, but I can't tell, cause the computer seems to not be acknowledging the monitor's existence. It works, obviously, but not for anything other than safe mode. My specs are a P4 2.4G, 512 MB with a SiS 651 motherboard. I don't know if I should just take out the graphics card, switch over to the onboard card that came with the machine and then clean everything out and try again, or what. The problem is that I have all the schoolwork on the computer, and some of it is due tomorrow, so I need to get this resolved fast. I tried a system restore, but I haven't been around to see if it's worked yet. Can anyone help?

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Any graphics card you use should work with the Windows default drivers, which will give poor resolution and color, but not stop the machine from booting. Your problems seem to be in the boot sequence, not the display.

[Tyger]

Any graphics card you use should work with the Windows default drivers, which will give poor resolution and color, but not stop the machine from booting. Your problems seem to be in the boot sequence, not the display.

[Dux Bellorum]

So what should I do? The monitor isn't showing up in the Device Manager, and I can't update the driver (the option to do so is greyed out) or anything like that, so I'm at a loss for ideas.

[Doby]

Hi,

Download and burn to cd drivercleaner then from safe mode install the program and remove any drivers related to video.

Then install the drivers for the card you are going to use.

drivercleaner should be run when ever switching video cards and especially when switching from Ati to Geforce.

This may or maynot work depending on if windows is corrupt.

Rick

[Dux Bellorum]

Thanks Doby, that worked great and my monitor is back online again. However, there's one last issue with it; while in the Desktop Settings I can move the resolution slider to 1024x768 (as this has worked on both my GeForce and ATI cards) now the monitor resolution won't actually set that high, the screen goes black, then resets after the 15 seconds. Does this have something to do with the fact that my monitor.inf file has gone missing? Is there a way to reinstall it somehow? The emachines site (the producers of said monitor) is down, or timing out, anyway. Do you have a way to fix this?

[Doby]

Try going into device manager and remove the monitor then reboot, this will reinstall the driver for it, you could also run the troubleshooter for the monitor from within device manager

[Dux Bellorum]

Trying to update the driver for the monitor didn't work; the computer could find no update. I'm a little wary of deleting the monitor entry from the device manager; if there's nothing to reboot from, what's supposed to load? As I said, I'm missing the monitor.inf file, which I guess tells the computer to talk to the particular monitor you have. What do you think, though?

[Doby]

Is this monitor a LCD or the old CRT

If it is CRT then you will be ok because when windows reboots it will find the monitor and auto load drivers for it.

Some newer LCD's have a problem with this and if you have one of these then you have to use a different/older montior and boot to windows then load the drivers for the new monitor and then switch back to the newer LCD

[Dux Bellorum]

Yeah, it's the old clunky CRT type.

[Doby]

Nothing wrong with "old clunky CRT type" I use them myself and prefer them for gaming the little gaming I have time for anymore