Odd power problem

This isn't Win7 specific (mostly)

First, look at my system specs.

OK, for the past few months, I've been having a problem where about 60% of the time on boot, I guess the video hardware doesn't kick in. What's weird is that it not only doesn't load any video (both monitors stay in "powered down" mode - yellow light), but the system access light stays solid red.

All of the fans work. I checked the circuitry twice. I don't have any power problems at all, period, once it boots. I've tried other cards, different power cables, etc. I've even underclocked my system (I never overclocked it).

I mostly work around it by hitting reset and waiting to see if the monitors turn on.

My guess would be some fault in the hardware, but I can't find it. I've done everything short of switching motherboards.

Now, the weird part... when I switched from Vista to 7100, it worked frine. When I upgraded to 7201, it reverted.

Before I go out and spend on a new motherboard, I wanted to see if anyone has a better idea.

hehe, I'll bring some beer

Yea, I tried resetting BIOS. I'm looking up new motherboards now (when something breaks, it is a great excuse to upgrade, of course).

Going to be installing 7229 in a sec, I'll check BIOS version when I reboot

BIOS is updated.

I took the opportunity to upgrade my motherboard. Maybe I'll have enough next month for a new processor :-p

My computer actually just started doing this yesterday...I'm running build 7100, my graphics card is an ATI 4770. I've discovered that I can boot up into safe mode just fine, and clean out the display driver using driver sweeper...and then it'll boot up regularly (with the windows driver), but once I try to install the ATI driver again, it will boot up into a black screen...I tried several different drivers and it doesn't matter which one I choose, I only get the black screen. Any suggestions?