OT: I NEED SOME HELP, PLEASE!!!!

[MythicalMino]

Ok, yesterday, i bought the GeForce XF 5600 card from MSI. I put it in, it was working.

I decided today that maybe i should do a clean install of the drivers. Perhaps that was not such a good idea. Because now, all I get is a black screen. The pc itself is running fine, i can hear icq in the back ground, ect. But, i cannot see anything. Just a black screen.

I have tried unplugging my monitor, restarting, and then re-plugging it back in, but i still get nothing. I have tried going back to my previous graphics card, but again, nothing.

All i did was install the drivers from the cd-rom. After they were done, it asked me to restart, so i did. Now, all i get is the black screen. I cannot check any settings, because i cannot see anything on the screen.

Does anyone have ANY idea what i need to do to get my screen to work properly.

Btw, when i first turn my pc on, I see the windows XP logo, but then, after that, it goes black, as the pc loads.

ANY HELP please!!!

Thanks

Chris

P.S. I understand that this is off-topic, and that they may be "appropriate" forums to post this, BUT, I am using my mother-in-laws pc right now, and i need to get the answers quickly....hence, i am posting in the forums I visit the most....

[Argitoth]

dood, goto Properties --> Settings --> Advanced

And mess with something in there. You need to tell the computer what video card you are using.

[MythicalMino]

I would, if i could....but i cannot see anything on the screen....the screen is totally black

[condors]

if the monitor has a green light try it on another pc or another monitor on your pc

if it has a orange/yellow light check the connections

[Johan K]

You could boot in safe mode and then install another driver. I don't remember the proper way to get into safe mode, but a reset halfway through the boot process might do the trick as well if your harddrive survives it (mine did).

[Arryn]

Try loading XP in "safe mode". This will bypass your card-specific video drivers and use Windows' own standard drivers. If this works, you can then try messing with settings, or re-installing drivers.

BTW, since you have XP a bit of advice: always create a system restore point prior to changing your hardware config or making any drastic changes to the OS environment. Microsoft has an excellent metallic blue and black -colored paperback tome (ISBN 0735613826 $45 list) called Windows XP Inside Out that I highly recommend. It has pretty much everything you'll ever need to know about the OS.

[Wauthan]

You get into failsafe mode by jabbing F8 a few times durin startup. I've made a quick search on your problem and it seems your situation is not that uncommon. Seems one solution to a similar problem was to let plug-and-play reinstall the hardware with a different driver, as I now noticed Johan K suggested already...

Some Nvidia pages seems to hint that downloading drivers while running a lot of other stuff can corrupt the driver and cause it to malfunction after install. Nothing in the official support mentions your problem specifically though so it seems you just been very unlucky.

[ February 22, 2004, 22:53: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[Arralen]

Refresh rate / screen resolution is higher than your (old?) monitor can sync on.

Press F5/F8 during startup and boot into save mode. Check desktop/graphics properties for

a) monitor that Windows recognized
b) what refresh rates / screen resolution are set


edited: ugck... beaten 3-fold ...

[ February 22, 2004, 22:49: Message edited by: Arralen ]

[Argitoth]

.

[ February 23, 2004, 07:54: Message edited by: Argitoth ]