[kmbrad]

Hi

Heres hoping someone may be able to help.

I have a Compaq Presario S5150UK.

When I turn my tower on, the monitor LED goes from orange to green and the monitor turns on (as it should). However after about 2 seconds on the Compaq screen, the monitor then intermitantly cuts on and off. Its definately the monitor as the tower boots up fine.

If I press F1 at start, once in setup the monitor will be OK. But as soon as I exit setup it does it again.

Approximately 1 in 20 power ups it will be OK. I leave it on all the time now with a screensaver.

I'm baffled, any ideas?

Karl

[Dave Hybrid]

What are you baffeled about?

Sounds like your monitor is on the way out.

[kmbrad]

No, I disagree...

If I unplug the cable from the back of the tower, the monitor will stay on with "no input signal".

?

[Dave Hybrid]

Your not being very specific.

What cable are you unplugging?

If you are unplugging the signal cable from the tower but leaving the mains plugged into the monitor its normal to see the "no signal" message on the monitor. As its telling you that the signal lead has been disconnected.

Please explain better if i'm not getting this.

[kmbrad]

hi dave

sorry, haven't explained myself very well.

when the monitor start cutting on and off at start up, if i unplug the signal cable then the monitor stays on.

also, it never cuts on and off when i'm in setup. but as soon as i exit setup and reboot it, it'll start agin.

hope this makes sense? someone suggested my graphics card?

[Dave Hybrid]

When you turn on your PC it is in Dos and doesn't require drivers to display the picture. It is also displaying the picture at a low resolution.

The same applies when in your bios.

When the PC moves past the bios to booting windows the monitor shifts up to the set resolution in windows.

If the monitor disagrees with this resolution it will turn itself off.

This could all happen because of the monitor being faulty and not being able to display high resolutions or it could be the graphics card hardware or even the graphics card driver software.

Also, the monitor will always stay on if you disconnect the signal cable but leave the power plugged it. This is normal.

My advice is try and boot in safe mode, this is done by pressing F8 repeatedly when you turn on the machine. This will load windows without the graphics driver software. If the PC loads its probably the driver software. If the screen still messes about then its likely the graphics card hardware or the monitor.

Also try the monitor on another PC to rule that out.

Fixing PCs is a process of elimination.