Simviation Forums

My new i7 system has decided it doesn't want to play nice. I've had it running well over the past few days up till a few hours ago. I restarted the computer and it refused to boot. I don't even get to see a POST screen. All I get is my screen coming on, saying "No Signal" then turning off again then repeating. Whatever signal is being sent to turn it is is gone by the time it is on. I've tried clearing the CMOS by moving the jumper and removing the battery, but no luck. I've tried booting with one stick of RAM and testing each piece on its own but again no difference. I don't have access to another system to test my components in so I'm really drawing at straws now. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get my system to boot?

See my third post

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.

If your graphics card has 2 DVI connectors try the other one.

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.

Have you checked that the monitor and card are running at the same rate? E.g. 60 Hz

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.

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.

what card is it? and psu.

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

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.

I have seen drivers do this too

Some reported a black screen with Vista 64 and the 180.48's

I would try another driver before I would damn the card but if you were not getting any 'boot' screen then that is either the card, the PSU or the motherboard .. or the card is not seated properly

or a BIOS setting for PCIe is not right

what card is it? and psu.

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

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.

I have seen drivers do this too

Some reported a black screen with Vista 64 and the 180.48's

I would try another driver before I would damn the card but if you were not getting any 'boot' screen then that is either the card, the PSU or the motherboard .. or the card is not seated properly

or a BIOS setting for PCIe is not right

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.

As I said

if this a 'boot' black screen it is not a driver issue

Its either the card, the slot on the board, the board electronics, the PSU or the BIOS

More than likely a bad card, bad seating of the card in the slot or its also possible it could be a BIOS file issue that a BIOS update may fix

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.

Monitor?

That is a very odd-ball issue then

Does this monitor use the same DVI cable or are you using some kind of converter on it?

If its using the same cable then I would suspect Acer screwed the pooch on something because those signals are standardized in the industry. As long as the monitor supports the cable in use it should respond the same and any other 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.

Nick: All I did was change from the Acer to the TV using the exact same DVI-i to HDMI cable, no converter. So i think ACER has screwed something up.

Shane: I couldn't find the post again to save my life. I accidently found it while looking for something completely different and I can't remember the search term. What I can tell you is there are two fixes which can last from 2 minutes to a year or so. Thers's no way to know how long it will last as the problem can come back at any point. In the OSD monitor settings turn off a setting called DDC/CI. This has been found to fix the issue, but it didn't work for me. The other is to unplug all cables from the monitor, press and hold the power button for 30 seconds and plug everything back in. This performs a hard reset of the monitor and this is what fixed it for me. I hope this helps.