Well, my system just finally decided to kick over, but I have nothing on my display. Windows did its little chime, everything is buzzing away and I've just logged into Windows and heard the sign in sound. It seems that I've got a DOA graphics card. I'm going to get onto the people I bought it off and see what they say.

Already tried. I've even tried changing PCIe slots. At the moment I have a display. It seems to come on sometimes when Windows loads, but not before that.

So here is the updated problem: When the computer starts I have no display. When Windows and the display drivers load the display sometimes comes on but when I restart it disappears only to possibly return with Windows. Different PCIe slots, Power connections or DVI connections don't make any difference.

They are, and for the moment everything is back to normal. I've finally got the POST screen displaying and BIOS opening. I'm not happy with the way the card is behaving and I'll be asking for it to be declared DOA tomorrow.

Is it your old hard drive? you may need to buy a new one and load windows on to that.

waspiflab wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2009 at 10:37am:

The card is a brand new Zotac GTX280 Amp! Edition. I'm using an OCZ GameXstream 850 PSU. The hard drive is also brand new and only had Windows installed less than a week ago.

NickN wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2009 at 10:46am:


My problem doesn't seem to be linked to drivers. It occurs straight from start up and then fixes itself when the drivers and windows loads, or sometimes it doesn't even do that. My monitor turns on and off as if the graphics card is also turning on and off, with the monitor being woken by the card but then displaying No Signal when the card turns off. While the problem was happening I tried different DVI slots on the monitor and card, I checked the power cables to the card and even swapped them around for the other one and I tried switching the PCIe slot the card was using. None of these fixed the problem. The only PCIe setting in the BIOS is the PCIe Freq which I leave on default at 100MHz. When the problem fixed itself last night it did so in stages. Firstly The computer would boot with no display then Windows would load with no display. I used key commands to shut down and next time it started there was no display during boot, but display when Windows loaded. Two or three reboots later and I had display from boot. I'll give different drivers a go to rule them out, but I'm not holding my breath for an improvement.

The graphics card has been ruled out as being the problem. Yesterday by pure chance I found a post online from someone who was habving the same problem but he was blaming his Acer screen. I have an Acer screen and decided to connect my PC to a TV to see if the results were the same. I used the same DVI to HDMI cable and the display showed on hte TV right from the POST screen. Looks like I need to change the monitor.

Where is this post located? I Would like to read it also.

I'm running two monitors, an Acer 22" and a Proview 22" and my Acer does the exact same thing, but I always thought it was because I was using two monitors.

The Proview doesn't experience this ever, while it's consistent on the Acer.

OK

This makes sense and yes.. it is a Acer screwup

Their system does not change frequencies automatically as it should and requires the internal be reset or the monitor be rebooted... if thats the case it may happen again but its definitely a Acer design flaw

Shane: It appears if my life did depend on it, I could save it. I just found the place where I found the info on the acer screens. http://www.fixya.com/support/t134458-monitor_comes_up_shows_acer_says_no the first few posts have the fixes. The search term that helped me stumble on this was "Acer DDC/CI"

No probs at all. The only reason I did end up bringing this up is I thought my issue was a lot more serious at first. I'm thinking of getting onto Acer and seeing if I can get this firmware upgrade performed under warranty. Is yours still under warranty?

Wingo wrote on Jan 5^th, 2009 at 8:38am:



No links.. I just know that a monitor, any monitor, has 2 internal systems in play when you boot. One is the power save in which the signal from the cable should energize the monitor and the 2nd is the frequency of the card in use which the monitor should match as it comes out of power save mode and display the image.

If either one are not working correctly and its confirmed the issue is not the card by switching displays or cables, then the monitor itself is defective.

Its also very rare, if ever, to have the monitor work after it boots into Windows. Usually it does not come on at all.

So in this case and since the monitor was working the problem must be a design flaw on the part of Acer where their internal programming or hardware is not communicating correctly with more modern adapters