video question

[cronus1914]

Hey everyone. My computer takes a while to show the video on the monitor. I know theres a reason for this (read it somewhere) but I forgot. What makes this happen and how can I get my video to show up on the monitor immediately upon boot-up?

BiLL

[Sylvander]

Hello Cronus.
Why use a pseudo-name then tell us your name is Bill?

When you push the power button:
1. The Bios prog's start to "poll" the hardware to see what you have and whether it's working or not and what resources they require. This is the Power-on Self Test or POST.
2. If all's well it sounds a single beep and activates the video card. The monitor then starts to display information on screen.
If all's not well the BIOS either sounds a multiple beep code as a warning indication [or it sounds no beep at all] and the startup process halts.

[hiredgoonz]

Depending on the motherboard, it will take anywhere from a second or two to 15 seconds to initialize the video card. Then you have to wait for your monitor to warm up before you see anything. The length of time this takes gets longer as the monitor gets older and varies from model to model...

Another possibility, if it is taking a longer than expected time is what kind of video card you have and what kind of video card the BIOS expects to see. If you have a PCI card and the BIOS is set to initialize an AGP card as the primary, this can lengthen the time for initialization (the same is true in reverse, you have an AGP card, but BIOS is set to initialze PCI first)...

It will still, obviously, find the PCI card, it justs takes longer. The only time this matters is if you have more than one video card and you want to take full advantage of one card over the other. Many cards, when initialzed as a secondary lose some of their functionality...