[jumper007]

I was playing Pirates of the Carribean and it crashed. Ctr-alt delete did not work it was frozen. So i hit the reset button. boots up in VGA mode. crappy reso and colors. I reinstall my Nvidia driver and reboot. Same problem. I install microsofts drivers and it works, however it no longer is detecting my nvidia card. I got a bright (BAD) idea that maybe the mobo's vid card was taking over so i disabled it. Reboot and windows loads and where my desktop should be is a black screen. Green light on monitor. I reboot, enter into VGA mode and screen still remains black. I reboot again and try to do safe mode, It does a scan disk and freezes on the scandisk while it boots in the background windows chimes in but no desktop, it stays on the scandisk screen. Ive searched the forums to no avail, i couldnt find an incident where someone couldnt get into the vga mode or safe mode to fix it. Please Help! Thankyou!

1 gig AMD Athlon 512MB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 64Mb DDR RAM
ABit KT7-RAID with HPT 370 Bios motherboard
Windows XP Pro

[active95]

So let me get it right.... After you disabled the onboard video you are not able to boot anymore?. If that is the case. can you enable back the onboard video and try to boot ?

[jumper007]

actually I just found out my mobo does not have a built in video driver... i think when i disabled the driver in advanced settings, it was like svga or sga maybe vga. Still just get a black screen on boot up. anything in CMOS or BIOS I messed up? I tried restoring Fail-Safe defaults and that did not work. Im still searching forums and have found nothing helpful as of yet. =(

[Whitestar]

If u disabled SVGA, the only way to sort the problem is re-install windows.

[active95]

Hmm.. so basically you are able to start the computer , see the POST ( as in , info about the CPU speed, RAM test..etc..) but nothing after that?
If that is correct , then it sounds like a Windoze problem not mobo.
Also in the back of the puter do you have connector to hook up a monitor? If you do , hook up the monitor to it and see if it will boot that way.
Post back soon...

[jumper007]

Yeah i thought that my mobo had a built in video, but it doesn't. However my video card the Nvidia GeForce Ti 128MB DDR has a DVI port too. I was wondering if maybe it was using the DVI port instead of the VGA. I breifly looked up some forums about people asking for DVI to VGA converters. Is there such a thing? I went to Radio Shack and they didnt have them. It seems that Re-Installing windows is going to be the next choice if there is no such converter. If i reinstall windows how much information will be lost? Thankyou for your continued assistance btw Active95 and Whitestar I appreciate it! I hope i can be up and running soon with your help. Will continue to update as solutions fail or one finally works.

[~Candy~]

Can you get as far as to tapping the F 8 key for the menu to choose last good configuration?

[active95]

Yeah ..there are DVI to VGA adaptors... either look on line like pricewatch.com or your local " mom & pops " store should be able to get you one.
When it comes to reinstalling windows you don't loose much of the info , as long as you don't select " clean install " of windows. What i mean by "clean install " .. windows in the setup routine will ask you if you want to repair , reinstall or just wipe the slate clean.
HTH

[jumper007]

Ah cool think ill try and find a DVI to VGA adapter than, if that works i wont have to reinstall windows, unless that is an easier solution. I read one post where a guy had the same problem, and he summed this one up really well. He said something like I can't believe that windows lets you disable something that critical without a warning of some kind...one mouse click and restart and you are screwed. Off topic... Do you guys know if my Abit KT7-RAID mobo will support the DDR sticks and if so, how much DDR would my comp support and actually use? Thankyou again guys!

AMD Athlon 1.0 gig
512MB PCI 133
128MB DDR GeForce 4
350W PSU
Abit KT7-RAID
56X CDROM
XP Pro

[active95]

Sorry jumper .... u're out of luck.. no DDR RAM will work with KT7.. you'll need to stick with PC 100 or PC 133 DIMM

[jumper007]

I might have made some progress... I put in an old voodoo3000 card and it boots up just fine. I uninstalled the nvidia drivers and changed back to the Geforce card and the same problem occured. I went to PNY's site and found optimal BIOS settings for the card changed the BIOS and still same problem black screen, or freezes on the scandisk. Anyone know what to do next?
Thankyou for the help!

[~Candy~]

At this point, I would be thinking something happened to the card itself.....

[active95]

if you're able to boot with the voodoo card, it start to point towards the video card itself. Now if i remember correctly, in BIOS make sure that AGP speed is set to to 66 Mhz. If that is set up right , then either there is an overheating issue. ( for that might wanna try and have some sort of fan on the video card ) or the card itself is the problem, which means you either might try to get a replacement or buy a new one..

[jumper007]

Oh i hope its not the video card... its only like a year old and has worked perfectly till now... did my comp fry it or what? Speaking of overheating... in the BIOS on computer health, it shows the temp and the RPM of the fan(s) One fan is running 5000+RPMs the other is zero. I assumed i only had one fan, or am i an idiot and 2nd fan is the video card fan causing it to overheat and shut down? Or is this another fan somewhere else in the case and if so where is it? But maybe thats not the case since the voodoo card worked. I took my card to a friends comp and he was working with it, but i havent heard from him yet. Im going to check up on it today though. I guess that if he cant get it to work on his comp, than it is the card and i need to get a new one. bummer. If its the fans how can i repair it, or does that need replaced too? One more thing, if i do need a new video card, should i stick with the Nvidia GeForce 4400 Ti 128MB DDR or go to something else no more than $200 that is just as good or better. Thankyou for your help all!

[active95]

Let's see:
1. About the fan situation. The reading that you see in the bios are indeed from CPU and one extra fan. Now if you installed the mobo inside the case, should had a intake or exhaust fan install as well. (if you have a tower case, look in the back of it <under power supply ) and if there are "holes" there , see if there is a fan as well.
In any case the second ( the 0 ) reading, comes from a "fan header 2 " which you have it on the board. In other words.. either you don't have a fan installed in your case or the fan that you have do not support "rpm readings".
If you will get a new video card, for under 200 bucks get an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro ... it's a great card...
HTH