Windows 7: No video output from PC, boots normally.

My Windows 7 64-bit custom-built PC stopped outputting video suddenly. I thought it was just the monitor entering power-saving mode, but no such luck.

I tested the monitor by plugging it into my iMac that sits alongside my PC, and the monitor works just as it did before.



The monitor was plugged into my Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 graphics card that has two DVI ports. I got desperate and tried swapping ports (I knew it wouldn't do anything but I tried anyway )

I figured the graphics card had died on me and removed the DVI-VGA adaptor connected to my monitor, and plugged it into the VGA port on the motherboard.

It worked, and displayed my boot sequence and then the desktop. However, as I had not used the motherboard's built-in graphics since I bought the card several years ago, and had reinstalled windows many times since then, it had no drivers. So I watched in 800x600 as Windows detected the hardware and installed the drivers, and then asked me to restart, which I did, and later found to be a mistake.

Upon restart, the VGA port was doing the same thing as my graphics card, not showing anything. However, I was able to access it through remote desktop and LogMeIn, and saw that no hardware errors were detected. I then tried using msconfig to restart it in Safe Mode, however, the screen still doesn't display anything, and the LogMeIn software won't run automatically in safe mode. I haven't tried remote desktop yet, but i'd imagine the results would be the same.

Sorry for the long post, but please has anyone got any ideas/suggestions?

Did safe mode alwasy work before? safe mode uses "standard VGA" driver and should always work.

Do you see bios screen? Can you hit F8 multiple times and see the Advanced Boot Options ?

Safe Mode fixed the problem when connected to the VGA port. I've now fixed the problem by using the motherboard rather than the graphics card, which I think must have come loose or needs replacing.

The cable must have come loose when it was connected, hence why the monitor still didn't show anything when connected to the motherboard.

Looks like I'll need to replace the graphics card