Blank screen after installing XP.

[john558]

Trying to update to XP Home, I have an oldish agp card sis and when the installation got to Installing devices the screen went black and monitor shut down to standby. I tried another agp card an ATI Expert and that fully installed but on first boot the screen went black and monitor switched to standby. I put in an old PCI card and that fully installed and worked but only had basic video settings. I have a Gigabyte GA-7ZX-H board.

I wondered if it`s worth buying a newer video card, I`m not into games so don`t need anything special. It seems to be an agp problem with XP. I tried changing agp settings in bios but it was just the same. In the meantime it`s back to Windows 98.

Would be grateful for any tips and ideas.

 

[mobo]

Its not in the bios settings if its working on 98. It has to be some Windows xp setting. Perhaps its not a supported card by xp that you have there..
I would be curious to see what it would do in safe mode as it uses vga mode.

 

[confusedSQL]

Have you considered the fact that your monitor may be the limiting factor, here?

 

[kiri]

No, confusedSQL. If the monitor was working well previously it will work fine on another machine with the appropriate drivers which can be found on any good manufacturers website. The monitor is the least of anyones concern. Cheap as.

John,

XP can be a prize btch when installing on an older machine and I wouldn't recommend it at all. It sounds like your video card requires a serious upgrade. If it's integrated you can disable that and install a shiny new one.

Check that your CPU has enough grunt to cope with XP. 1800 or less could be slightly dodgy.

Any machine older than 2 years, in my experience, requires a whole new motherboard to cope with XP home or office. Go figure!

 

[confusedSQL]

Have you considered the fact that your monitor may be the limiting factor, here?

 

[john558]

Working Now.

I tried a new pci card also but got the same problem. I found if I go into safe mode I was able to install the Via 4 in 1 drivers for the motherboard, the one that fixed it I think was a cpu to agp driver.

Thanks for the suggestions..John

 

[ekÆsine]

so it did not let you install motherboard drivers unless in safe mode? glad you solved your problem