Fidcal on 30/8/2008 at 09:11
Quick look in FAQs but can't find anything.
My monitor is plug and play GNR. By 'error standby' I mean the screen goes black and its LED flashes rapidly. Switching its standby button off then on again brings it back on. Sometimes I'd do that a few times to get it working again.
This was intermittent since I got XP last year but seems to be worse now and mostly can't get a picture back at all in 640 x 480. The menus and readables are displayed at 640 x 480. I can only play via Dromed and bypass the menus. I can't decide if it is a monitor problem or an XP one or video drivers. By default XP doesn't provide for 640 x 480 res and since my monitor is plug and play I wondered if somehow a signal is passed by XP OS to prevent it. But then, tons of people have been using XP...
I just found if I run Thief 2 then when the monitor goes into error standby, if I switch its standby switch off then, when I switch it back on again it usually takes a couple of seconds or so to warm up and go into error mode (it's still black at this time not yet warmed up.) If, during those seconds I hit the monitor menu buttons to bring up the menus (which would not be visible anyway yet as the tube hasn't warmed up) then after a second or two the readable appears (no monitor menu) and seems stable.
When I boot up in the morning, XP boots normally and the screen is visible from the start text screens then an Acer graphic screen then eventually XP welcome screen etc. If I reboot later in the day then on reboot it goes straight into error standby. I wait until I think it has reached a graphics screen then switch the monitor to standby then back on and it is OK. This might suggest a monitor fault once it has got hot. But I booted to an old floppy Dos 6 with Xtree and its screen was fine even after an hour. So I was wondering if as soon as XP OS starts to boot on the hard drive if the plug and play monitor thinks 'uh oh, XP, better disable everything below 800 x 600)
When booting, the graphics card (gforce FX5900) drivers haven't yet loaded which suggests it is not a driver problem. BUT maybe the drivers write something to the card which is retained at next boot?
cattamer on 30/8/2008 at 11:40
Monitors generally tend to go to standby mode when fed with a resolution + refresh rate they can't handle.
Check your video card drivers settings if something like doubling or some special setting is activated or not for resolutions below 800 x 600.
However it seems like a monitor age problem to me. A faulty capacitor is mainly the culprit.
Fidcal on 30/8/2008 at 12:08
Woah! Thanks - search the card settings and found Display Mode Timings : Enable doublescan for lower res modes. UNchecked. I have now checked that box and first run of T2 it seems to have worked - even a readable works. I'll see how this goes over the next few weeks but it does look to be fixed. Many thanks. :thumb:
