HowToFixComputers.com

Brandon · Guest

Sometimes when i boot up my PC, and after the xp loading screen clears
and it should go to the login screen, my monitor just goes black. But
the green light on the monitor statys on. I find that if i pull out the
monitor plug from the video card and put it back in then the monitor
comes on. Is this a problem with my monitor, or something else??

thanks for the help

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

Hard to say, exactly. Could be monitor, could be graphics card, could
be the cable in between them.

Brandon wrote:

Brandon · Guest

Is there anyway i can toubleshoot it, to find out what excatly is the
problem??

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

Well, the easiest would be if you had another computer around so you
could try swapping parts (monitor, cable, graphics card), but this is
not always practical.

Here's a thought. Your monitor probably has some sort of menu button on
the front. When you press it, there will probably be some sort of
frequencies displayed. For example, mine right now says
"81.4kHz/100Hz". The actual numbers displayed will vary, depending on
your monitor, graphics card, and desktop resolution settings. Make note
of the values for the following:

when the computer is at the "WinXP is loading" screen
when the computer is at the normal WinXP desktop
when the computer has the black monitor problem

Let me know what you get.

Brandon wrote:

Brandon · Guest

Heres what my monitor (Optiquest V55) says

Normal XP desktop

H frequency 68.8 khz
V frequenxy 85.0 hz

XP loading screen

H frequency 31.4khz
V frequency 60 hz

however the blackscreen after the windows loading screen as not
happened since i reformatted my hard drive eairler this week. Is it
possiable that my hard drive was the probelm??

Brandon · Guest

The problem just happned again, only this time the light on the monitor
did not stay green, it turned into the orange color i get when i turn
of my pc but i leave the monitor on. I pushed the menu button, but
nothing came up, i even tried turning the monitor off with the power
button on the front but even that didn't work. However when i unpluged
the cable from the video card my login screen came up just fine.

what do you think this means?

thanks again

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

From the way you describe the problem, it sounds like it happens when
the computer swtiches graphics modes (as evidenced by the different
readouts from the onscreen menu). The monitor receives a signal that it
cannot process, so it just turns blank or goes into standby mode (orange
light). In standby mode, you will not be able to pull up the onscreen
menu, so that part is normal.

Since unplugging and replugging the video cable seems to do the trick,
check the pins on the video cable. Make sure that none of them are bent
or dirty, and that the pins are making a good connection with the
graphics card. It is not unusual if some of the pins are "missing", so
do not worry if you do not see all 15 pins.

Brandon wrote:

Brandon · Guest

i checked the pins and it seems that i have all 15. When i get the
black screen the light on the monitor doesn't always turn back oragne
likes its in stand by, it usually stays greeen, the orange light just
came on once. Does that have anything to do with the problem?

Brandon · Guest

I checked and there are all 15 pins. But when the black screen happens,
the light on the monitors usually stays green, only that one time it
changed to orange. Also I don't think the video cable had a godo
connection with the video card, because when i checked the pins and I
put the cable back in i gave it a firm push and it went in a little
more than it usally does. I hope this fixes it, i'll let you know if it
happens again.

thanks alot for your help

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

Yeah, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope this fixes the problem.

Brandon wrote:

Brandon · Guest

The problem happened about 3 times since my last post. But now its not
just when i am going to XP. I recently installed slackware 10.1 And
when i was booting up and goin to the boot loader, the problem happned
again. And when i unpluged the monitor cable the boot loader came up. I
think you were excatly right, the problem happens when i can trying to
change video modes. What should i do? I was thinking i could switch
monitors with my mom to see if the problem happens with that one.

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

Switching monitors with your mom is a good idea. It will be interesting
to see if the problem stays with your computer or if it follows the monitor.

Out of curiosity, does your monitor have the video cable built in, or is
it one that you can unplug from the monitor's end?

Brandon wrote:

Brandon · Guest

Its built in

Alex Zorrilla · Guest

OK. I was curious because if the problem happens to be in the cable or
connector, I usually feel pretty stupid throwing the whole monitor away
because of that. I am not really sure how often that happens, though.

Brandon wrote:

Brandon · Guest

yea i know what you mean, It seems like such a waste. I switched the
monitors today, and the problem hasn't happened yet, but i think its to
early to jump to conclusions. I'll give it a few days and see what
happens.