Please help - no video when vista starts up

4544 Views 8 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Rhykael, Jun 19, 2008

timmybrown3

Discussion Starter · Oct 22, 2007

Hi everyone, I built my new computer three weeks ago and I have Vista Ultimate 32. Everything was going fine until today when I decided to install the game enemy territory quake wars.

I installed it and when I went into the game and tried to change my video settings it would only let me change to 4:3 resolutions even though I have a widescreen 22 inch monitor. So I pick 1024x768 and play the game. When I am done I exit and go back to my Vista desktop only to see that now my whole desktop is in 1024x768 as well.

I go to display settings to change it back to 1400x900 (or whatever that is) like I had it on before I installed this game. I then see that that option is no longer available. Now the highest I can choose is 1024x768 in the display settings. I'm like wtf?

So I reboot thinking that might solve it, only it just got worse. Now the comptuer starts up fine, I have video and everything as the bios loads, right up through the Windows Vista loading screen where the green bar is filling up. I can see that, but as soon as I hear the "ding ding" of Vista starting up to the password entry screen, my monitor now says "no input signal" and everyhting goes black.

I tried safe mode and safe mode with networking, they both boot fine and I have video signal in them.

When in safe mode w/ networking I isntalled my nvidia drivers again but that didnt fix it.

Comptuer is:

asus p5k mobo
e6750 2.6ghz
8800 gts superclocked evga
320gb seagate hd
2gb corsair mem

What is going on here? Thanks for any help!

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Rollin' Rog

· #2 · Oct 22, 2007

Do a System Restore -- this can be done from Safe Mode.

Just choose a date when it was working normally. Nothing will be lost except programs or updates after the restore date.

It is available in Vista from the Start Menu, or by "searching" for it or running rstrui.exe

Once you get back to normal -- determine if the monitor is just identified as plug and play or is identified by model. It might help to determine what the compatible refresh rates are for various resolutions for that particular model and make sure you don't exceed them. Choose 60 hz if in doubt.

Most games will return you to your prior settings when returning to the desktop -- unless there is some problem. But not all -- especially beta versions and older games.

Finally, you may have a problem with the card itself. Try reseating it. Also make sure the monitor plug is fully inserted and tightened.

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timmybrown3

Discussion Starter · #3 · Oct 23, 2007

Rollin' Rog said:
Do a System Restore -- this can be done from Safe Mode.

Just choose a date when it was working normally. Nothing will be lost except programs or updates after the restore date.

It is available in Vista from the Start Menu, or by "searching" for it or running rstrui.exe

Once you get back to normal -- determine if the monitor is just identified as plug and play or is identified by model. It might help to determine what the compatible refresh rates are for various resolutions for that particular model and make sure you don't exceed them. Choose 60 hz if in doubt.

Most games will return you to your prior settings when returning to the desktop -- unless there is some problem. But not all -- especially beta versions and older games.

Finally, you may have a problem with the card itself. Try reseating it. Also make sure the monitor plug is fully inserted and tightened.

Hey Rollin, thanks for the reply but unfortunately I disabled system restore immediately upon installing vista as I didnt care for the constant hard drive activity it was causing.

Also I am having no problem using the windows vga driver it is just as soon as I install the nvidia drivers and reboot now it is giving me no signal. If I uninstall the nvidia drivers and just use the standard windows vga driver I can get to the desktop in normal mode and set my resolution to 1650x1000 but as soon as I log off or restart the pc it changes right back to 800x600. Then if I go ahead and install the nvidia drivers for my card and reboot I just get the "no video input signal" and I hear vista beep to indicate its time to enter my apssword like it always did, I just cant see anything!

Thanks again and any more help is much appreciated

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Rollin' Rog

· #4 · Oct 23, 2007

8800 gts superclocked evga

I'd have to say -- bad card. See if you can RMA it.
System Restore does not consume a lot of CPU time -- it tends to do its thing when there is IDLE time.

Now the "indexer" -- that could hog resources for a while, until it is finished.

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timmybrown3

Discussion Starter · #5 · Oct 23, 2007

Rollin' Rog said:
I'd have to say -- bad card. See if you can RMA it. If it's "overclocked" you might try resetting it to it's defaults or underclocking it and see what happens -- but I suspect it's fried.

System Restore does not consume a lot of CPU time -- it tends to do its thing when there is IDLE time.

Now the "indexer" -- that could hog resources for a while, until it is finished.

Hey Rollin, the superclocked is an evga card that comes from evga as a little souped up, it hasnt actually been overclocked by me. A

I find it hard to believe it is a bad card when I have been using it over 14 days and it has worked flawlessly until I tried this quake wars game. I went into that game and since it wouldnt let me choose a widescreen resolution like every other game I played I picked 1024x768 and it all went bad from there.

As soon as I exited that game there was no way to get my desktop back the way it was and only now is the card causing any problems and only when I install the nvidia drivers.

If its a bad card why does it still work with the windows vga driver, and only have a problem with the nvidia driversS?

I have played - half life 2, bioshock, world in conflict, team fortress 2, oblivion, etc all in the past two weeks for hours at a time and not one problem with the card.

It was only this wacky game where it messed up my whole resolution and now everything has gone insane.

Arg, the card has a lifetime warranty but I really dont see the card being broke in any way, it has to be something in my windows installation somewhere, like old driver settings, i tried driver cleaner and no luck

I am confident that if i just formatted my hard drive and reinstalled vista everything would be fine again, but i dont want to have to do that

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Rollin' Rog

· #6 · Oct 23, 2007

When you are in VGA mode, have you checked the "refresh rate" and lowered it to say, 60 hz and then tried to load your Nvidia display at the desired resolution?

It may be a corrupt Nvidia registry value -- but unless you can find some cleaner that works for Nvidia in Vista -- I don't know how you are going to get a clean install.

Whatever the case the card is not even sending a signal to the monitor when it tries to load the Nvidia drivers and so defaults to VGA --

I may be mistaken, but I think VGA can be displayed even with no card installed. Although this may depend on whether there is an onboard video chipset on the motherbord.

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Chedmeister

· #7 · Feb 29, 2008

Hi, i have this exact same problem as of this morning. Everything was working fine last night.
Vista boots up with the low resolution loading screen with the moving bar but just before the blue microsoft logo and the twinkly sound effect is shown, the monitor looses its signal. its like i pulled out the vga cable because the monitor LED goes from green to orange and i can hear the static on the screen. Vista continues to load in the backround and if i press the power button on the PC it shuts down on its own ok.

Ive had this problem before with a 8800gt which i had overclocked and even attempted to upgrade the bios with EVGA's own bios update. As soon as i did the update the same thing happened. The problem was solved when i upgraded to this GTS 512 card but I have not attempted to overclock it though. EVGA told me to RMA it which i have not yet done.

Both cards work fine with safe mode and with the nvidia drivers uninstalled. The wierd thing is it works with XP although i havent tried it with games yet.

i am getting a new vista machine tomorrow which i will test these cards in. i just get a hunch that they will work. im not ruling out my PSU, Antec swapped it for an upgraded version when it did not power my GT. I will also try the system restore idea.

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Peebs

· #8 · Mar 5, 2008

I just had this problem and after much searching and trial and error I found that the video on VGA was fine (even using a DVI to VGA adapter). It appears Vista is looking for some sort of signal from the monitor on DVI. I (eventually) recycled the power on the monitor and guess what ? Problem solved. How easy was that. I dont know why but it worked.

Cheers

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Rhykael

· #9 · Jun 19, 2008

Recycle the power from the monitor? Hmms, how me wonders?

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