What is going on here!?!?

[EmAn]

Alrighty people I am having a very frustrating problem with my system...

I tried to boot up my system yesterday and it posts, loads winblowz, then the screen goes blank.... It never comes up

So here are my troubleshooting steps that I have done already...


1.Check power connections and re-seat the video card
2. Boot Safe Mode(yes works in safe mode)
3.While in safe mode checked the drivers(I noticed that one of the .dll's are not electronically signed)
4. Uninstalled drivers then scrubbed down with driver cleaner
5. Boot into windows normally(Works great but the 800x600 resolution sucks
6. Reinstall drivers and then reboot
7. No video after winblowz loading screen
8. Ran Memtest 86+ (Passed)
9. System Restore to a couple days earlier
10. No video after loading screen
11. Yell obscenities in the air and take a shower followed by sleeping

A couple of quick observations

I have locked the PCI-E bus at 100mhz and 101mhz.... No Difference
I have also taken my overclock back to stock and it still does it
The card and Northbridge never got hot

I feel that I narrowed the problem down to the card/drivers well enough so here are your anticipated system specs

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Processor: P4 511J Prescott ~3.8ghz stock volts stable
Video Card: BFG 7800GT Overclocked edition (fresh back from RMA and worked for a while)
RAM: 2x1gb OCZ Platinum DDR2 800 revision2
PSU: OCZ GameXStream 600W (checked voltages with a DMM idle and under load and they are stable
HDD: Samsung 200GB
O/S: Vista Ultimate



***NOTE*** Please do not turn this into a vista bashing thread

Thanks in Advance

 

[PhysX]

start up, f8, last known good configuration.

 

[EmAn]

I tried that and it didn't give me that option for some reason

but i'll try it when i get home but my internet at home is currently down so ...

 

[jason4207]

Have you tried the other DVI port?

Can you hear the windows loading sounds after the screen goes blank?

 

[EmAn]

Have you tried the other DVI port?



Can you hear the windows loading sounds after the screen goes blank?

First question no

Second question yes



Also... I had previously configured my drivers for my fan speed to go to 25% when not doing 3d stuff... and I DO hear my fan spinning down as well to 25%

 

[Jas]

Sounds liek the driver isn't loading up the digital interface for the monitor.

If yo umonitor has VGA in, try using that, yo umay need to use a DVI to VGA adapter.

 

[EmAn]

If i can find a dvi to vga adapter I'll definately try that as well

 

[Evilsizer]

i would ask does the video work when you boot into safe mode, if vista has such a thing. sorry im just tossing out ideas, dont own vista,so i dont know about it having a safemode to get into.

 

[LilBuddy]

It sounds to me like your computer is sad you are calling it winblowz.

 

[reclaimer122]

Same thing happened to me after I got my new 8800GTS and 22" monitor. Worked fine the first time, but when I reformatted and reinstalled WinDOWS, it would act just like you are describing. I figured it was something wrong with the video drivers, so I loaded regular Windows XP with default VGA drivers and was able to figure out that I had to set my display to 60hz, 1680x1050 BEFORE I set the display to 32-bit. For some reason, if I did it all at once, the screen would go black and I had to repeat the process. Try that out. I'm not sure how I changed the nvidia settings without loading the drivers though... I think I just used the right click desktop > properties menu.

 

[EmAn]

well the internet now works here at home and I am in safe mode

I have tried the last known good configureation and it did not solve my problems so I will try the other dvi port and then if that doesn't work I will uninstall drivers again and scrub it as well...

Then I will download the latest nvidia drivers and see if that takes care of it.

Thanks for your help so now I just need to try working again.

 

[EmAn]

well... lets see

Tried other dvi port... no go
Uninstalled nvidia drivers then scrubbed (normal mode and safe mode) still doesnt work
installed latest driver from nvidia... still doesnt work

it only works in safe mode

 

[EmAn]

I have another idea on why this is doing this...

GROUNDING ISSUES

I have been shocked a few times lately touching the case... also I just plugged in a usb drive and there was an arc that jumped across then the system rebooted

 

[LilBuddy]

Wear a grounding strap when you get near your computer at all times.

 

[jason4207]

I have another idea on why this is doing this...

GROUNDING ISSUES

I have been shocked a few times lately touching the case... also I just plugged in a usb drive and there was an arc that jumped across then the system rebooted

That's static discharge. I always touch the case before I touch any thing that electro-statically sensitive...especially in the winter.

Touching the case will ground you, and I try to keep at least 1 finger touching the case if I'm messing around in there.

I killed my old MoBo (P4P800E-Deluxe) by touching my phone antenna...it was plugged into my PC via USB, and the charge traveled up the antenna, and into the USB slot. The PC started acting crazy (mouse wasn't working right), and then it just stopped working. Upon close inspection there was a raised bubble on the SouthBridge chip.

I don't think this is the problem we're seeing here, though.

I think it's got to be software related. Since it works in safe-mode, I don't know what else it could be. I don't know what else to try besides an OS reinstall or trying XP. Do you have a copy of XP? Perhaps you can create a new partition and install it to test. Or install another copy of VISTA on another partition and test.

 

[cabose1227]

try a different card to make sure its card or driver related.

 

[reclaimer122]

Same thing happened to me after I got my new 8800GTS and 22" monitor. Worked fine the first time, but when I reformatted and reinstalled WinDOWS, it would act just like you are describing. I figured it was something wrong with the video drivers, so I loaded regular Windows XP with default VGA drivers and was able to figure out that I had to set my display to 60hz, 1680x1050 BEFORE I set the display to 32-bit. For some reason, if I did it all at once, the screen would go black and I had to repeat the process. Try that out. I'm not sure how I changed the nvidia settings without loading the drivers though... I think I just used the right click desktop > properties menu.

Did you try this...? lol

 

[Douken]

lol, this happened to me once, a good friend from Argentina helped me out. Go to safe mode, disable the card drivers, reboot to windows enable the drivers, go to Display settings, change the res to whatever you want and that's it if I remember correctly. If that doesn't work, I'll try searching for that thread.

 

[EmAn]

I'll try some more things but I have PM'ed SeanOMatic and I am waiting for a response...

I'll be home later today and I will let you guys know what happens...

Also... I have un installed the drivers again and it fails to boot in normal mode.

Thanks for the help as it is helping me narrow down the problems and Plase keep the advice coming!

 

[Douken]

any news?