Display Problems

My sister is having problems with her monitor on her Gateway 400 Celeron. When she turns the unit on, the monitor power indicator light will first turn green. Then, the monitor will display the “self test” screen, click several times, and the indicator light will turn yellow. I told her I thought this was a bad monitor but she put her husbands monitor on and got the same results. This was after trying a different electrical outlet and double checking all connections. The video/sound is onboard in this particular Gateway so I am afraid that IF it is video related, the motherboard would need replacing. She is bringing the unit down this weekend for me to look at.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,

Jeff

I think we had better wait until you have a chance to hook up the PC to a monitor yourself before going to deep into this…

As far as replacing the MOBO, why? Try adding a video card to one of the expansion slots first, see if you can get a video signal there...

Thanks.

I should have thought about the video card but I was typing this up during a work break and hurried through the post.

Thanks...I'll repost when I get the unit in.

Jeff

Has she tried booting into safe mode at all? It may be that the resolution is set too high for the monitor. I think its wise to look it over yourself though, after all techs don't let family members tinker with computers... at least not in my family :rolleyes: :D

Listen to the BIOS BEEP codes...
If there is none - it is probably a fried board.
One Beep is Good enough for me... ;)

Quote:

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Originally posted by Gabriel
Listen to the BIOS BEEP codes...
If there is none - it is probably a fried board.
One Beep is Good enough for me... ;)

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No beep is more likely a fried proc, as I have learned first-hand on more than one occasion. Of course, the strong burning smell was more of an indicator in that situation.

Still, she may need only an add-on vid card, but I wouldn't use MINE to test with...

I got my sister’s computer in. When I boot into safe mode and go to Device Manager, I can see ATI Rage 128 VR AGP under the display heading with a red “x” through it. I can then choose properties and attempt to update the driver. I use the browse function to drill down to:

C:\cabs\win95-98\display\ati128

Windows then says it will update with this driver but upon reboot, all I get is the “monitor self test” screen again. There is also no sound. The sound drivers are located within the “win95-98” folder listed above. I DID get both sound and video working at one time with video at 16 bit color but before the desktop could finish loading, a screen entitled “Gateway Application Loader popped up saying that it was installing these items:

Questions and Answers
ATI Video
Gateway.net
McAfee Antivirus
Firewall

It froze at the video drivers and when a restarted, I was back to where I am now with nothing but a test image.

One last item: While in Safe Mode, if I drill down to “C:\cabs\win95-98\display\ati128” and simply run setup from this folder, I am told to first install a standard video driver. If I go through Device Manager again to update the driver choosing one that Windows recommends as the best, I get the self-test image at boot-up.

Pasted below is a link to Gateway’s Support site that carries you to a page describing the exact makeup of her system arrived at by entering the serial number.

http://support.gateway.com/support/d...?sn=0014942331

Lastly, after the unit boots and the monitor light turns amber with the screen totally black{no self test image now}, I can hear the Microsoft music playing letting me know the desktop is loading AND the little diddy that plays to take a tour of windows.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Jeff

I'd suggest taking the ATI setup's advice to install a standard driver & go from there. Don't accept what windows tries to install, choose "Display a list", then "Show all hardware" or similarly worded options, select "Standard Display Types" then one of the standard adaptors, say Standard VGA or Standard PCI Adaptor. This should install the 16 colour driver, then try the install again for the onboard drivers.

Go to go with Platypus, install the standard adapter first, then use the Ati install app.

Ati are **** for this, I have had the same situation on a number of ocassions and have done as suggested to get it working.

Doesn't always work first time though, so persevere.

emr

It could be the video is dying slowly...

I have had a couple of cards that will run as a standard pci vga adapter but will not accept the drivers or if they do accept windows forgets and reverts to the standard after reboot.

The only sympton of this I have noted is that when the machine first boots, you should see a bios identification of the video card - before it shows the screen where its counting ram and showing the Award/AMI/Phoenix bios details... if you don't see it, it is likely that the onboard chip is dying.

Your only option would be to get a pci video card and turn off the onboard in bios - or disable it in windows if there is no option to turn off the onboard vid in bios.

Thanks Platypus, EMR, and all others who helped. Your advice to use the standard display adapter DID work but it took 4 or 5 times trying to install it before it finally worked correctly.

The only problem now is an exception error that says:

"OpenExclusive failed Config. TBD The system cannot find the file specified. Error 4508088"

I am guessing that this MAY be because I am using a Gateway keyboard and Microsoft 2-button mouse and she has a Logitech keyboard and Logitech Trackman Marble Mouse.

Anyway, we have had problems with her computer for several months and I told her to back up her files and I would do a format/reinstall with XP Home Edition or Windows 98. Maybe this will prompt her to back up those files and get ready to format.

Thanks Again,

Jeff

An OpenExclusive failure suggests a problem with CD burner software. Is there a burner fitted? If InCD or similar is installed, try un-installing it(& if used, re-installing), or an OS re-install can do wonders, make sure all drivers etc are available.:D

You know, I just remembered a similar problem we used to have - "computer-savvy" users would slide the resolution slider all the way to the right for the best picture they could get. You said you could get safe mode, so try adjusting the slider to 640x480 and see what happens...it always worked for me, and those comps all had ATI cards.

I've also occasionally seen similiar problems with the refresh rate. Sometimes you had to set this to adaptor default and sometimes to optimal. Also loading the monitor drivers has cleared up this problem as well ( especially if you have to use optimal settings! )

Thanks for all the help. I formatted the drive and installed Windows XP to replace windows 98. Display works like a charm.

Thanks Again,

Jeff

Quote:

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Originally posted by Titchski
Has she tried booting into safe mode at all? It may be that the resolution is set too high for the monitor. I think its wise to look it over yourself though, after all techs don't let family members tinker with computers... at least not in my family :rolleyes: :D

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I think this is the most probable cause so far.

TL

worse comes to worse you could always rma that card directly to ati, they offer 5 year warranty on all their cards.

https://apps.ati.com/rma/rma.html

you can either send them your card and they send you one back or if you give them a credit card number the send you one first and you have 30 days to send back the defective one. Good Luck