I am building my own computer and I am having trouble getting the monitor to respond. I have a XFX 9600 GT video card and a KDS 22" monitor. The video card is DVI interface and the monitor supports both DVI and VGA. The monitor came with a VGA cable and since the video card is DVI, I am using a DVI to VGA adapter. I tried to change the monitor signal source, but when I turned on the monitor and tried to bring up the menu, nothing happened. The monitor stayed blank. Remember, I am building a computer and I am encountering this problem when I tried start up my computer for the first time. I checked the inside of the case and the video card fan was running, so I am presuming that means the video card itself is operating correctly. I am going to get a DVI cable so hopefully that will help, but still I need some help.
May 31st, 2010 on 11:37 pm
Usually, the boot process will tell you by the beeps if there’s a problem with the video card. A proper boot will give you one or two beeps when the POST completes and then the video comes up. Video failure is detected by the Power On Self Test and you get different beep combinations, depending on the BIOS. If you aren’t getting strange beeps, then we can assume the video card is OK and the problem is in between.
Do you have another monitor to test with? How about another straight VGA video card? With this you can test the monitor and the cable anyway. Try to remember that the best test instrument is a spare part and to use each test to eliminate half the possibilities.