IC7-G bootup, monitor video card slow to 'kick-in'..........

Hi all, new IC7-G here (original bios 23 i believe, sys as follows....

P4-2.8C @ 2.8 to start with
2x512 pc4000

dvd ide1 master
dvd burner ide1 slave

2 x 60Gg ide2 master & slave

2 x 200Gg Sata1 & Sata2

Leadtek 6800GT 256 (w/ 1 molex power input)

Audigy

Pci LAN

Enermax 465

Benq FP2091 21" lcd

....i recently builtup this system and just got it running. The first
problem i've run into is during boot the monitor doesn't seem to receive a
signal until after both bios screens pass by. The video card has it's own
4pin molex...i think i'm also running the same line onto two of the hdds.
Should i run a seperate power lead direct to video card? Is the video card
'browning-out'? if not can anyone help me out? I have the bios set to agp
first and not pci. The power supply should be enough, i will probably take
out the two 60 Gg drives once i get the data tranferred and just run with
the two 200 Gg satas.

Thx for any suggestions.

 

You should update this to 25 as a matter of course, but unfortunately this
is unlikely to make any difference to the issue you're seeing.

Eh? Why are you using a PCI network card when your motherboard has the CSA
gigabit LAN chip? If you need a second network port (so you can use the PC
as a home router etc.), fair enough. If, however, you only need the one
pipe, junk the PCI card and use the onboard networking.

The CSA network chip communicates directly with the memory controller hub
(i.e. northbridge) on the motherboard, bypassing the PCI bus completely.
Thus, even if you don't take advantage of its gigabit capability, it still
offers a system performance advantage over PCI cards.

Does this mean you're unable to get into the motherboard's BIOS at all? If
so how have you managed to overclock your P4 2.6C as mentioned further up?
What happens if you repeatedly hit the DEL key "blindly", does the monitor
eventually
power up and show the BIOS setup screen?

Under ideal circumstances, yes, but in truth it's unlikely to make a
noticeable difference unless your power supply is one of those with split
12V rails.

Doubt it.

The solution to your problem is most likely to be within the video card and
its BIOS, or maybe in the LCD monitor's power-up sequencing/power saving
settings. There's certainly no generic issue with the motherboard's BIOS
failing to initialise the video card in a timely fashion.

Unless you actually have both a PCI and AGP video card in your box, this
setting will make no difference.

Indeed it should be, full complement of hard disks or not. This issue
doesn't look like anything directly related to the adequacy (or otherwise)
of the power supply.

Suggest you try another monitor, to see if that switches on any quicker. If
this solves the problem, see if there's anything you can do to tweak the
BenQ's configuration or power saving settings. If swapping the display makes
no difference, see if there's a BIOS update, configuration utility, or
similar available for your graphics card that will address this issue.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace .nospam with .com in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com
Get the most out of your digital photos www.dabsxpose.com

 

Hello, thx for the reply. On the bios yeah that's first on the list to do.

Pci-Lan because i mostly run Linux and i didn't wan't to futz
with onboard chip drivers at the moment, just going with what i know.
I plan to use the onboard network shortly once i get the major issues
sorted.

I guess i should have been more detailed, during boot, the monitor seems
to receive an intermittent signal, during post, the monitor may flash some
'bios text' briefly and the monitor flashes a 'no signal' info box several
times.....by the time the lilo bootloader starts, the monitor has a stable
video signal. If i hit 'del' at the beep during boot i can get into bios.
(that's 2.8 @ 2.8, just showing i haven't turned things up yet.)

Right, understood on everything coming off the same 12V rail. The Benq FP
worked as it should on a BD-7 mainboard with a Ti4400. I will try a
different monitor....and also see what happens when i boot windows.
Possibly may also be something in the acpi module of the multiprocessor
kernel i'm booting with this HT processor. ...i could also try booting
into the plain vanilla kernel.

rgds,
Andy.

 

.....wait a minute, obviously it's not the kernel or booting into windows
if it nappens during bios post only, thinkin about too many things at once
here.....

 

Rofl. correct! :-D I was just about to post to that effect when I read your
second message!

Problem definitely seems to be somewhere between the monitor and the
graphics card. More likely to be the card if the BenQ's behaviour on the
other card is anything to go by. Play out the process of elimination and
things will be clearer, if nothing else.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace .nospam with .com in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com
Get the most out of your digital photos www.dabsxpose.com

 

Though it won't solve the underlying problem, you can use hard disk
delay feature in BIOS to give the monitor enough time to stabilize
before the BIOS boot screen disappears.

 

Righto, thx for the tips, will try a few things when i get home this
weekend.

 

....thx for that, was not aware of that feature..i will keep that one
in my back pocket if my troubleshooting goes poorly.

rgds.

 

try hitting the pause key on the keyboard early in the POST sequence to stop
forward progress and see if the monitor ever comes up. if the monitor is
just going into a standby mode temporarily and then coming back online, it
may stay dark for some or all of the POST sequence. if that is all it is,
then the monitor should come up while the system is frozen in pause mode.

if the monitor does not come up, you still don't know why but at least you
know for a fact that the video card is not driving it to come up.

I have never had an issue with the power lead coming to the video card
sharing some other devices but it is simple enough to prove out even if it
means leaving a device temporarily unplugged long enough to go through a
POST sequence or three as a test...

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

ftp://geerynet.d2g.com
ftp://68.98.180.8 Abit Mirror <----- Cable modem IP
This IP is dynamic so it *could* change!...
over 130,000 FTP users served!
^^^^^^^

 

....thx for the input Tom, i will try that and post back to newsgroup what
i find out from all the suggestions. It did appear that the monitor
was going in and out of standby as the bios comes up.