AHH!!!! Probable $565 loss?!?! Vid card/mon, help!

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grego

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Worst 24 hours of my life. Break up with my girlfriend of 2.5 years last night, tonight my new $340 vid card blows up my $225 monitor and itself! AHHHH!

So I decided to put my new PC into hibernate before I left today. Much to my delight, my raptor had my pc in a deep slumber in about 1.5 seconds, unlike my pathetic 5400 rpm notebook drive.

Mmm ok. Time to see how fast it comes out of hibernation:

*Press keyboard*
*typical CRT static-ey noises*
*typical CRT static-ey noises intensify and continue abnormally long*
*WHITE FLASH/CRASH!*

The power indicator on the monitor started rabidly flashing. I don't think the power button even responded at that point, so I had to unplug it. I plugged it back in, pressed power, same result as above. For some reason, I did it once more. Oh gee, maybe because I wanted my freaking brand new monitor to work like its supposed to... but anyway, same result. I don't think it will even give me that light show anymore. One time I restarted and the DFI Lanparty Logo before BIOS tried to come up for a second but it was all fuzzy and crapped out in seconds.

"Perhaps its entirely the video card?" I thought to myself, since I thought I could easily test that. So I brought out my laptop, used the display out, and hooked it up to my new monitor. Still nothing. I brought out an old 15" crt from like 1993. Just switched the VGA cable over, and voila, my laptop works correctly with the old monitor.

So, I decided to hook up the old monitor to my new pc/graphics card. Upon a reboot, the DFI logo comes up clear as day, as does the windows loading screen, but then, when the desktop would normally come up the (old 15") monitor behaves as if it has lost the signal.

I don't know. I need to chill. If you've got any help or thoughts hit me up... please! I'll try to do a little more testing in the meantime and post if I find anything relevant.
 
Alright. My new understanding is that this is all the monitor's fault.

I plugged the new 19" crt in to the outlet again, powered up, and it sizzled and made all of its pissy noises and then gave me that flash/bang again, like it did in the first place. It had no connection to the pc at this time. Quite frankly I'd like to shoot it with a shotgun at the moment. Fortunately I don't own one.

The videocard's behavior still puzzles me, perhaps someone with more experience can sort it out. It boots into windows, but then appears to lose contact with the old 15 inch monitor. Maybe this has something to do with the Samsung monitor drivers I had to install, but shouldn't new monitors still be plug n play?
 
As far as the monitor coming up blank in windows, windows is probably remembering the old resolution and refresh rate, which I am sure an old 15" crt cannot display at all.

Boot into VGA mode (does XP still have that?) or safe mode.

BTW, just be glad you aren't into cars. Worst day (financially) of my life was when I spun two main bearings in my motor and ended up spending over $5000 to replace an entire motor.
 
Yes,

if you dont know how to boot into VGA mode turn on you computer and just keep hitting F8! :)

Once windows has booted up in VGA mode right click on your desktop and go to properties then hit the settings tab and set the monitors resolution to 800x600 or 1024x786 then hit advance and find the tab where you can change the monitors refresh rate and set it to 60. Once you have done that hit apply and reboot.

Note: If once you click safe mode and boot windows the monitor dosnt work well the the rest wont work :)
 
In cars? Heh, I'm in cars a lot :). Thanks for the safe mode tip. A friend had just recomended that to me and thank God the old monitor now works with it. It does not appear to be due to the resolution settings. The resolution I've set to 800x600 and the only option for refresh rate is "hardware default" in safe mode. Perhaps the video driver is causing the incompatibility. Bottom line, I think I've narrowed it down to just a bad monitor.
 
well get an RMA on the monitor..your model is pretty popular so im pretty sure its just a crappy monitor

btw, before you do this, borrow a friend's monitor or use another one

003 said:
Ha those monitors suck. Get a LaCie electron19blueIV.

no one cares
 
Yea, gonna have to RMA it. I'm pissed I'll have to pay $30 for shipping though. I know it could have been A LOT worse, but still, it's not even my fault and I have to pay to ship this lead weight back. And if I wanted a refund, they'd take another $30 off for restocking fee, what a rip. Pretty sure I'll just be sticking to an exchange. I've got my old monitor working fine now, the reason it wouldn't work before was because the refresh rate was too high. Had to uninstall the drivers in safe mode and install some really old ones... but it works for now :). Thanks for the replies guys.
 
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