Have Windows 98.. Monitor trouble....

[canix]

I have a Hewlet desktop computer... I just loaded my Windows 98 on it and it can't get to the desktop without having the screen going pitch black. But now I can't even get to safe mode. It will bypass everything and go straite to boot-up. I see DOS booting and everything is ok until I hit the desktop and then it goes black. I have already rules out the bad montior and bad video card theories. HP (pheonix) CMOS doesn't help me much in finding out if the thing is set to VGA or SVGA. All I can think of is the resolution is bad.. But I tried that and It doesn't seem to like that eighter. I think I have worked myself into a corner... Please HELP!!! I gotta have this by tomorrow... ~Canix

 

[bdux]

try holding down the left shift key while win 98 is starting . this seems to force the computer into safe mode and bypasses the startup files. If you can get into windows remove the display adapter from the device manager . Look on the motherboard for the VGA bios chip ( might see cirus or CL - xxxx) or look at boot up on the screen for what type of display card your pc has . Look on the internet for the Device driver for your adapter card or built in vga on motherboard . Being HP you may be able to phone HP support or look in <A HREF="

http://www.hp.com.au"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.hp.com.au</A>

to get the correct windows 98 driver for the vga adapter . The vga driver may have come on a cd or disk with the computer when you purchased it .&nbsp;&nbsp;When you reboot,&nbsp;&nbsp;windows should detect display adapter . Pick the windows standard vga driver until you find the correct driver to use .&nbsp;&nbsp;

 

[Long]

You said you ruled out a bad monitor????
dos is a very low resalution (64X64 text) the windows safe mode is 640pixels X 480pixels so if you have not done so try the monitor on another windows PC.

also check the color of the led on your monitor some video cards like ATI and 3DFX (you hp has a most likly has a ATI video card) somtimes choose refresh rates that most monitors cannot handle for unknown reasons if this is happining the led on most good monitors will turn a odd color like orange, or blinking red ect.== somthing odd... to fix this you have to change the refresh rate in win safe mode or sometimes reinstalling the device will help...


Good luck.............