PC trouble (Non-VB)

Sorry to waste the time of you hard-nosed coders.

I have a PC that was donated. It has WIN98 pre-loaded. I plug it in turn it on and, with two different monitors, I get nothing but rolling lines on the screen. Kind of like the television looks when the horizontal scroll is all messed up.

I am able to kind of read what is happening and have changed the screen resolution. This did not help. Are there any suggestions out there?

Thanks in advance....


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Boothman
There is a war out there and it is about who controls the information, it's all about the information.

[HarryW]

Trouble with the display can mean basically only 3 things (assuming it's a hardware fault). Well as far as I know anyway.

1. Monitor's fu.. err broken
2. Graphics card's broken
3. Motherboard's broken

My guess is the graphics card. Do you have another you can try? If it's a PCI card, are there any other PCI cards installed? Could just be a conflict. Maybe something's bus-mastering and it doesn't like it.

If you have spares, you might want to swap each component individually and see if anything's broken, but be careful, if there's a problem like a wrong voltage, you could just fry your working component :)

Thanks HarryW,

The guy who installed (It was donated from a company here in town) says it worked fine with his monitor. I have used two different ones that I know work on other computers. One is absolutely unreadable the other is somewhat readable.

The card is on the motherboard (What can I say it was donated) and it is a HP desktop.



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Boothman
There is a war out there and it is about who controls the information, it's all about the information.

[HarryW]

The graphics chip's integrated into the motherboard is it? Hmm, well has anything changed since this guy handed it over? I mean, anything different? Formatted it? Installed anything? Have you opened the box - ie could you have zapped something with ESD?

Nothing has changed. It is quite frustrating.
I start the PC and everything displays great: diagnostics, WIN98 startup screen, but when it gets to windows..... boom nothing but scrolling lines.

Could it be something in WIN98 that when loaded with the other guys monitor it set up a specific set of drivers that I need to somehow replace to make it work with one of the monitors that I have at this time?



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Boothman
There is a war out there and it is about who controls the information, it's all about the information.

[Al Smith]

Hi,
If your video chip allows the following settings to be altered, one possibility might be the refresh rate or synchronization setting in the Display Properties > Adjustment screen.

Al.


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A computer is a tool, not a toy.
<A HREF="mailto:asmith3914@aol.com
asmith@spxateg.com">asmith3914@aol.com
asmith@spxateg.com</A>

[HarryW]

I'm not sure that the refresh rate/synch settings would be different for different monitors. Monitors are all pretty much the same, and I don't see why system settings would need to be changed in order to get the thing working with other monitors.

I'm not discounting it though, it could well be something like that. The fact that it gets into wndows before the trouble starts would indicate a software fault.

But you say nothing has changed. I don't suppose you've tried his monitor again? He said it worked with his monitor, after all. If it still works, then you can be pretty sure that nothing's changed, but if it doesn't work on his computer, something must have changed.

It's a bait tricky, this one. If you were going to reformat your HDD, now may be the time to do it. Win98 startup disks are very good in general. If it's still flickery after that you have a more serious problem than just system settings. You might want to try booting up in DOS, too. I mean, press F4 (I think it's F4) when the computer's booting up. That might tell you if it's Win98 that's the problem, too.

[Al Smith]

Hey, I just thought of something.
Will the unit boot up ok in "Safe Mode"?
If you press F8 while booting, you'll get a "Start up options" menu. one of the selections is "Safe Mode".
You might have to wait for the first beep from the speaker before pressing F8.
Safe mode loads the minimum amout of drivers that Windows needs.
Al.


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A computer is a tool, not a toy.
<A HREF="mailto:asmith3914@aol.com
asmith@spxateg.com">asmith3914@aol.com
asmith@spxateg.com</A>

Thanks for all your help Harry and Al.

I will try it tonight and keep you informed.

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Boothman
There is a war out there and it is about who controls the information, it's all about the information.



[This message has been edited by Boothman_7 (edited 01-19-2000).]

[MicahCarrick]

If it's working fine in DOS mode (when booting up) and then starts to flicker when trying to go into graphics mode I'd say it's either the graphics card (Onboard cards have a tendancy to suck) or drivers/settings. Like was mentioned earlier, try booting in safe mode, and if that doesn't work, I'd assume it's the video card

If that's the case, some on board video cards can be overrided by setting a jumper and putting in a new card.

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Micah Carrick
http://micah.carrick.com
micah@carrick.com
ICQ: 53480225

Very simple.. just goto your windows/inf folder and delete all the MONITOR*.INF files.

Then have your WIN98 CD in the rom and reboot. Once it reboots it will look for your CD and install a default monitor driver. That should fix your problem...

Knight

[HarryW]

Aye, that sounds about right.

Next problem! :D

Many thanks to you all.

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Boothman
There is a war out there and it is about who controls the information, it's all about the information.

[Clunietp]

If the display looks good up until he gets to windows, it is a problem with his video card and monitor settings. (most likely NOT hardware problem, probably the refresh rate)

Reboot into safe mode, set video adapter to 'STANDARD VGA' and monitor to 'PLUG AND PLAY MONITOR' and reboot. Install the correct video driver, reboot again, and set the resolution to whatever you want.

To get to safe mode in Win98, just after the bios is done loading but BEFORE you see the windows splash screen, hold down the LEFT CONTROL key. You'll get your menu there, choose SAFE MODE.

This works 99.9% of the time with this problem (trust me, I do tech support :) )

Tom

Thank you all for your help. The display worked in standard VGA mode. Probably am going to put in a new video card and override the board.

Again Thanks, Tom, Al, Harry, Micah, Knight, Tin Woodsman, Lion, and you scarecrow, I am going to miss you the most.

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Boothman
There is a war out there and it is about who controls the information, it's all about the information.

[Gimpster]

As was mentioned before, I think it is that the refresh rate is set too high for you monitor. That has a tendancy to do exactly what you're describing. Try changing that before you go buying a new video card. Although a new card wouldn't be a bad idea, but why spend the money right now if you don't need to.

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Ryan

[Clunietp]

You don't have to give up on your existing video card. Just install the correct drivers and you'll be fine. Just make sure your monitor type is set to a Plug n play monitor....