How Can I Fix Long Monitor Startup Delay

Funny, I just dealt with this issue last week. I forgot about this thread.

I was preparing an older PC for sale and brought it into my laboratory (a workbench in the basement) to wipe the drive and install an OEM Windows. This had been a working computer in my office that had no problems. But on the workbench it was doing that thing: no video for any BIOS screens, but video when Windows starts to load. That did not happen before.

Here is what I researched and found:

• This is a problem seen on some Dell monitors. At least, most of the posts I found were dealing with Dells. My workbench monitor is a Dell 19" LCD. But the office monitor that was being used previously was a Dell 20" LCD. So you can take that info with a grain of salt.
• The problem occurs with certain BIOS - ATI graphics card mix (some ATI cards). My problem PC had an ATI card.
• In my case, the problem occurred only using the VGA cable. Switching to a DVI cable solved it.
• However, the original Poster said he tried switching cables and it did not work for him, so your mileage may vary.

You could test the PC on a different monitor to see if the problem follows the PC. That would indicate it is the monitor.


But as far as I was able to tell, some BIOS do not play well with some video cards in some analog modes on some monitors. It is a rare event with no ready solution that I could find.