Monitor troubleshooting

[Sygnus61356]

I actually have two different monitors that I am having some difficulty with. 1) First monitor will sometimes work for a short period of time - go to off (sleep mode), then message to check pc and cabling 2) the other monitor had the same problem, but went into a FACTORY BURN-IN mode. Has been running over 70 hours, no change. Both of these monitors have been tried on the same machine. Even put in a new adapter card - no change. The monitors will not stay on long enough to find what is wrong or to make any changes to correct this problem. Do changes need to be made in the BIOS????????

Hope someone can help.

[pave_spectre]

Welcome to .

Have you tried the monitors on a different computer to see if the same thing happens.

Someone else here will know more.

[Sygnus61356]

Hope this gets to the right person - I have never done this before - making replies to my questions.

Yes, both monitors have worked on other pcs.

[Sylvander]

It looks like you're not getting any signal to the monitor[s] from the motherboard/video card.
Download a [zipped] copy of my diagnostic charts from here, or send me a personal message requesting them [specifying zipped or not] and giving an e-mail address to send them to.
[I send updates to those who get them by e-mail.]

Continue with this boot troubleshooter from here.

[Budfred]

You might want to check power management settings in BIOS and in Control Panel. It sounds like this could be a power management issue. I would also check Device Manager and see if there are any indications of problems for the monitor and video settings.

[Sygnus61356]

I tend to agree - I just can't get into the device manager or anything else because the monitor will not stay on long enough to do anything. There are times when I can get into edit the setup by hitting the delete key at start up, but then again - the monitor will nock me out before I can thouroughly check any settings. I replaced the monitor this morning that is going through the FACTORY BURN-IN process (about 6 hours left to hit 99:99:99). The system seemed to start up fine, saw my desktop - then blip - monitor off. I'm becoming very frustrated as this is a machine we use at work.

[pave_spectre]

Have you tried booting into 'Safe Mode' to see if you can make any changes there. Or even if it will start in safe mode.

[Sygnus61356]

Yes, several times - can sometimes get there - blip monitor out.

[pave_spectre]

I hate to be obvious but are you sure its just apparently going into standby and not the computer itself rebooting/shutting down/crashing?

[Sygnus61356]

Now that you put it that way, CRASH could be a possibility. When this machine was used as server/workstation, had to reboot every morning because system resource would fall so low by end of day. When monitor shuts? down, the keyboard lights go out, reset button does not work, and you have to unplug machine to start over.

[pave_spectre]

Sounds like a bit more than a monitor problem then.
What are the OS and hardware specs for the machine.
How was it being used that you could 'run out' of resources over the period of a day?

[Sygnus61356]

GenuineIntel Pentium(r) II 401 MHz dA1 running Windows 98 Second Edition
Bios: Award Software 03/03/00
Bus Type: PCI, ISA, AGP, USB
Ports: 2 Parallel, 1 Serial
Memory: 128 MB
Floppy drive
Seagate backup drive
Zip drive
Hard disk: 10.06 GB, 94.0 MB
Multimedia: Sound, CD-ROM
Video: SiS 6326 Ver 4.0
Dos 7.10
Microsoft network

[Budfred]

You might want to try resetting the BIOS to see if that would make a difference. If not, I would strip it down to barebones and see if you can get into the BIOS setup. If you can, add back the floppy drive and try to boot to a boot disk. If that works, add back teh hard drive and try to boot to it. If that works, add the CD or Zip drive and so on.

If the barebones won't do it, you may have a bad mobo. Do a visual inspection for any sign of bulging or leaking capacitors or any other sign of damage.

[Sygnus61356]

How can I guarantee what the correct BIOS setting is supposed to be?

[Budfred]

Sorry, I wasn't clear on that... I meant to reset to defaults by using the Clear CMOS jumper or removing the battery, unplugging the system and pressing the power switch to discharge residual power. This sets the motherboard back to defaults. It is usually best to go into the BIOS and write down all the settings before you do this so that you can restore them if you need to, but it appears that you can't get into the BIOS to do that, so this is another option. You could try barebones testing first to see if you can find the problem without resetting the BIOS.

[Sygnus61356]

When I got home, (where the system was at being worked on) I removed the Seagate backup and zip drives. Everything works now. I am not replacing these drives as they actually will not be needed any more.

Thanks everyone for your help

[Budfred]

You still may want to do a little testing since it could be a power supply problem and removing the drives reduced the drain on the power supply. You could wait until something else goes wrong, but if you install something new and have trouble, that might be the first thing to check....

I'm glad you got it fixed and that you checked back to let us know....

[Sylvander]

Some way down that boot trouble-shooter it said:
“The chances are in this situation that there is something wrong with the motherboard or a system device plugged into it (cache, system RAM, processor). This could be a failed component or merely something loose or disconnected.”
Then:
“Remove all optional devices from the motherboard, including expansion cards, external peripherals, etc. and see if the problem can be resolved.”
Then:
“If the power supply is older, or this is a cheap case, or you have added many new drives to a system with a weaker power supply (especially one that is less than 200W) then you may have a power supply problem. You may want to try replacing it.”

There were lots of other possibilities to investigate too.