Decently Terrible Performance (Help me?)

[Death1223]

I can't really describe it much better than I did before. There's no way to see what I'd be doing in the bios because my monitor is just a black screen until I'm able to login to windows.

 

[dsperber]

I can't really describe it much better than I did before. There's no way to see what I'd be doing in the bios because my monitor is just a black screen until I'm able to login to windows.

Certainly very odd.

All video cards are supposed to be able to work in VGA mode, driven by both the BIOS for text as well as well as basic video operations from the MS generic video drivers... even without manufacturer-provided drivers for functionally enhanced operation to utilize all hardware capabilities.

Even if your BIOS is currently sitting at "quick boot" so that most self-tests and other verbose boot-time progress messages are suppressed, you'd think there would be at least something minimal presented.

The ASUS boards use the DEL key to enter the BIOS at boot time. The user manual for your Rampage III Extreme board says: Press <Del> during the Power-On Self-Test (POST) to enter the Setup utility.

So I'd think even if you are currently set to "quick boot" mode that pressing DEL continually at boot time should surely get you into the BIOS. Does this not happen?

So, two new mysteries: (1) why nothing from the BIOS normally goes out at boot time from your video card to your monitor, (2) does pressing DEL allow you enter the SETUP utility to talk to the BIOS, with something now on the screen?

 

[Death1223]

It used to show me everything that went on, but I removed a monitor that died on me and since then it has been black. Not sure if it has anything to do with it but that's when I noticed it changed.

And also it's not just the bios, basically everything before the windows login screen is black. The chkdsk, boot device selection(F8), everything. It's all a black screen and my monitor like flickers when I finally get to the login screen(Like when it changes resolutions.)

I'll test the DEL thing after I finish downloading Dying Light on steam.

 

[Death1223]

Alright, here's an update:
The start-up seems fixed since this is the second time I restarted and there was no delay in my desktop showing up and me being able to access the browser or anything for that matter.
However, I tried spamming the DEL(Delete) key on my keyboard throughout start up. My screen didn't show anything, but I sat there spamming it for 5 minutes straight so I have to assume it went to the BIOs but I just couldn't see it due to my screen remaining black.

 

[DavidE]

Can you connect your current monitor to the port you used for the monitor you removed?
Maybe some setting in BIOS is still trying to use that port first.

 

[Death1223]

That's the thing, it never showed up on that monitor, it always showed up on the main monitor... but I'll try to get into BIOS with the black screen then switch my monitor to all ports to check if it shows up.

 

[dsperber]

That's the thing, it never showed up on that monitor, it always showed up on the main monitor... but I'll try to get into BIOS with the black screen then switch my monitor to all ports to check if it shows up.

I have a dual-monitor setup, and BIOS output goes to BOTH of them at boot time.

But this is a single graphics card with dual outputs (DP and DVI) to two monitors. This is different from your setup where you have dual graphics cards. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the BIOS picked one of those two cards to "talk to", and then whatever 1/2 monitors you have that are connected to THAT particular graphics card would get the output from the BIOS through that particular card. Any 1/2 monitors connected to the other graphics card would thus get nothing from the BIOS.

So, if the monitor you say died and that you've now removed but when it was alive it used to get BIOS output, clearly it must have been connected to a port on one of your two graphics cards. And that must have been the "active" graphics card for the BIOS. With that monitor now removed, did you not put a new monitor in its place, connected to that same graphics card? If you haven't then the current absence of BIOS output at boot time to whatever monitor(s) you are left with is not a surprise to me given my hypothesis about only one of your two video cards being used by the BIOS, if you no longer have a monitor connected to that particular video card.

Your SPECS talk about two graphics cards, but don't talk about your monitor arrangement. What monitors do you have, and connected to which outputs from either/both of your graphics cards?

And as David suggested, if the arrangement of working-monitor and one of your two graphics cards USED TO emit BIOS output but no longer does now that you've removed that dead monitor, why don't you just put a working monitor back in its place... on that same graphics card? At least for this experiment, if not permanently.

 

[Death1223]

Alright, so I had attempted to do what I said I would do earlier. I rarely shutdown/restart my computer. It froze up a few minutes ago so I found that it was a good time as any to try that switching monitor thing. (Which by the way means that we haven't fixed that freezing... which is unfortunate.)

Anyways, I switched my main monitor to all of the open ports and nothing happened. Same black screen (No Signal bouncing around the screen)

Hmm... I felt it best to ask myself "Now what?" and now I am here to ask that same question, because she has begun to hate me.

 

[DavidE]

You can try putting a bootable CD in the CD/DVD drive.
If your first boot device is the CD/DVD drive it should pause for a few seconds to allow you to press enter to boot the CD.
If it does display that screen you may be able to press the DEL key to enter BIOS, or it may display some other key to use to enter BIOS.

If that doesn't work, another possibility is disconnect the boot drive.
Then Windows can't start and you might be able to get into BIOS from the error screen.

Resetting BIOS is also a possibility, but if you do that without knowing all your current settings, you might have a bigger problem of not even being able to start Windows without trying a LOT of different settings.

 

[Death1223]

? I can't start up my screen without making my computer select the boot device, otherwise it will tell me to select a different boot device. (It's had this problem and the chkdsk one for like months before the monitor problem so I can do it without looking now.)

 

[DavidE]

OK, i didn't re-read the whole thread.
If i understand your last post, it sounds like my previous suggestion 1 and 2 won't help.

That leaves trying a BIOS reset which can be risky.
Wait for others to give opinions and suggestions.

Before you do a reset you should post a screen print of Disk Management using this tutorial by Golden:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html
At least that will show if you are using UEFI or Legacy BIOS.

 

[Death1223]

Alright

 

[DavidE]

You are using Legacy BIOS, not UEFI.

 

[Death1223]

Then. . .
Should I install UEFI or something?

 

[DavidE]

No, that's not what I'm saying.

Based on the latest description of your last problem, doing a BIOS reset may fix it, so you can see the "BIOS screens" on startup, and get into BIOS settings.

In Post #49 i said

Resetting BIOS is also a possibility, but if you do that without knowing all your current settings, you might have a bigger problem of not even being able to start Windows without trying a LOT of different settings.

If you do a BIOS reset without knowing what the current BIOS settings are it can cause problems.
Now we know you don't use UEFI, so we know you don't want to set BIOS to UEFI, if you reset BIOS and have problems starting Windows.

If I understand correctly, right now you can't get into BIOS settings, and you are forced to choose a boot device every time you start the PC.
That's not normal behavior, and I was trying to give you a way that might fix that.

 

[Death1223]

No, I can get into BIOS Settings just fine. The point I am saying is that I can't see ANYTHING because my monitor isn't displaying anything at all, not the boot device or anything. The reason I mentioned boot device is that it's the only way I can start or else I get a boot device error. It wouldn't show the error or anything else in between boot and the windows login regardless of what I go to. The thing is that I can't SEE the BIOS, I am sure I am in it but I don't want to do anything if I can't see it, but whereas I just have to select the first boot device (that is automatically selected/default) then it will load into chkdsk which I skip now since it didn't disable after sitting through it when I did months ago. Anyways, yeah. That's what I meant. I can get into BIOS, I can get into anything just fine. The problem I am getting is that my monitor says "No Signal"(it's a TV so it says that when it isn't detecting anything from the cord) All the way from the start of the boot to until I can see the Windows 7 Login Screen. I hope this clears any misunderstandings up. Thanks for helping me.

 

[DavidE]

I'm still not sure i understand...
So, you know you can get into BIOS settings, but you can't see the BIOS settings screens ???
You are blindly clicking, but yet you do get error messages displayed if you don't blindly click the correct "response" ???

Also, you still have a "pending" chkdsk that you have never completed, right ?
Did you ever follow the advice from dsperper in post #40 to get the chkdsk issue resolved ?
Have you ever tried letting chkdsk run for whatever hours is needed to complete ?

If it was my PC, I would want to get the chkdsk issue fixed to make sure that isn't causing problems...
Maybe you have a HD hardware problem ???
If that doesn't fix things, then I'd do a BIOS reset.

Also, read this tutorial by gregrocker for more troubleshooting options:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html

 

[dsperber]

No, I can get into BIOS Settings just fine. The point I am saying is that I can't see ANYTHING because my monitor isn't displaying anything at all, not the boot device or anything.

This is obviously an unacceptable situation, and I would consider it the #1 issue on the priority list of symptoms to be resolved. Let's focus on it and see if we can get BIOS display output to one of your monitors again, as this is really critical to addressing everything else going forward.

You weren't specific about which of your two monitors previously did display BIOS output before it disappeared? Which one was it... your SyncMaster S27A350H, or your other "generic PnP" monitor? Can you please provide the brand/model of your second monitor.

I looked more closely again at your DXDIAG.TXT file regarding your display adapters and monitors. I have questions.

(1) You say you have dual graphics cards installed, i.e. two nVidia GTX 590 cards in qual SLI. Are these EVGA cards or what brand? You don't provide that in your SPECS.

But looking at the EVGA 590 cards they appear to have DVI (x3) and miniDP (x1) connectors on them. There is no HDMI connector, and no VGA connector.

You didn't show it in your SPECS but your DXDIAG report shows your second monitor as a SyncMaster S27A350H, and this monitor only has VGA and HDMI connectors. And yet your DXDIAG report shows this monitor connected via HDMI.

So I assume you've got some type of adapter+cable or dual-ended single cable (either miniDP->HDMI or DVI->HDMI) in use to connect the S27A350H to your PC.

==> Can you please clarify exactly how you have your S27A350H connected to your PC? I want to know exactly what cabling/adapter arrangement you're using. I'm guessing you're probably using one of the three DVI connectors on one of your two 590 cards, rather than either of the two available miniDP ports .

(2) How did you decide which one of your six potentially available DVI connectors to use to connect to the SyncMaster S27A350H? Is only one of the two cards somehow designated as "active" in the quad-SLI arrangement, so that the output ports on only that card are actually available for use?

And if that's true, then which of the three DVI connectors is #1, #2 or #3, or are they all equal and you simply then use Windows display properties and/or nVidia Control Panel to configure things?

(3) I recently had an opportunity to trial a new EVGA GTX 750ti SC card in my own dual-monitor setup (Eizo S2433W and Eizo HD2441W). I'm actually a long-time AMD user (currently R7 250 in this HTPC machine) but was looking for a bit of an upgrade and the EVGA GTX 750ti SC seemed like a good choice.

The 750ti card has DVI, DP and HDMI connectors. My S2433W monitor has DVI and DP, and my HD2441W has DVI and HDMI. So I connected the S2433W via DVI to the DVI connector on the 750ti, and I initially connected the HD2441W via HDMI to the HDMI connector on the 750ti. Note that my current connection with the AMD R7 250 card has the HD2441W connected via DVI to the miniDP connector on the R7 250 (through a dual-ended single cable), so that with the R7 250 both of my monitors appear as DVI to the BIOS I would imagine.

Now after installing the 750ti I fully expected to again see boot-time BIOS output presented on both monitors, same as I've always seen from AMD cards. I am guessing it's just how the AMD cards work in VGA/BIOS mode when two monitors are detected as connected, that the BIOS VGA output is simply replicated out to all connected monitors simultaneously. Anyway, I've always seen BIOS output on all monitors from any AMD card I've owned.

Well, surprisingly it didn't happen with the 750ti!! I only received BIOS output on the S2433W, which was the monitor connected to the DVI port on the 750ti. No output on the HD2441W connected via HDMI. Strange, and unexpected.

I then altered things slightly, changing the HD2441W connection to not use HDMI but to instead use the DP connector on the 750ti, going through a DP->DVI dual-ended single cable to the HD2441W. So the HD2441W now presumably appears to the VGA/BIOS as DVI (same as it does when using the miniDP connector on my R7 250), and I felt more confident that I'd again see BIOS output on both monitors.

Nope. Still no BIOS output on the HD2441W, even though it was now connected as DVI (presumably, even though using the DP connector on the 750ti card)! Very unexpected.

==> Since this is my very first nVidia card, I can only assume that maybe nVidia cards differ from AMD cards and do NOT put out VGA/BIOS output on all connected monitors, but rather only send it to the monitor conencted to the true DVI-connector, which must be seen as "primary". I'm speculating of course, but there must be an engineering explanation for why BIOS output only goes to one monitor, and in my case it is the one connected directly via the 750ti card's DVI connector.

Unfortunately, while I still had the 750ti installed (which I no longer do) I foolishly didn't think to experiment with having a single-monitor setup with only the HD2441W connected via HDMI (and not DVI) and the S2433W disconnected completely. Would the BIOS output now appear on the HDMI-connected monitor or not? I really should have thought of that test, but didn't.

Furthermore, I also neglected to try single-monitor setup with only the HD2441W connected via DVI (i.e. to the DP connector on the 750ti, through that DP->DVI dual-ended single cable), to see if BIOS output would be presented now. Kick myself now for not trying that when I had the chance.

(4) The DXDIAG output shows that your second "generic PnP" monitor is connected to your 590 via DVI. Is there no vendor driver INF file for this monitor, go give its true name and install a proper ICC/ICM file for color management? Again, what is the brand/model of this monitor?

Again, how did you decide which DVI connector on which GTX 590 card you used for this monitor?

(5) To try and narrow down the number of unknowns or variables in the story, I'd like to suggest you temporarily completely disconnect SyncMaster S27A350H from your PC. This will entirely eliminate boot-time BIOS/VGA output "conversion" (either from DVI to HDMI or from miniDP to HDMI) as a factor for possible explanation why you're not seeing any BIOS output on this monitor.

Then, now operating in just a single-monitor setup using only your "generic PnP' monitor which presumably is connected with a standard straight-through DVI-to-DVI cable, see if you now get BIOS output on this monitor?

If yes, please report. If no, please try each of the other two DVI ports on that 590 card, and see if you get BIOS output from any of these other ports?

If you still can't get any BIOS output from just this one monitor connected in true DVI-to-DVI mode, we need to go back into the tank to try and imagine how this could be possible.

 

[Death1223]

Now my computer isn't booting up. I opened it up, while booting it has red lights on the motherboard that is most likely the self tests it is running. It beeps twice. Once after the VGA red light and once after the boot device red light. The keyboard I use isn't fully lighting up, which it never does(it always fully lights up the wasd along with the caps lock and other buttons at the top right) I tried a different USB keyboard and it doesn't work(no change) and so I've run out of things to do. Gah, this sucks. It's never done this before. I hadn't even done anything since it last run perfectly, besides play a game and browse the internet. My cyberfox was acting weird so I decided to reboot...and now we're here. I'm having withdrawals, because of my addiction. Sorry I'm rambling.


EDIT: Alright I have no idea what I did but it fixed the boot device and the chkdsk thing. I was just laying down and it seemed to have fixed itself. I don't know what it did since I still have the black screen on boot-up problem. But I am able to use my computer now. My computer is strange though, it might've just fixed itself and I didn't do anything! Cyberfox is still having that error though, so reboot didn't fix that... but alas that's not our top priority.

Time to answer all of the questions that dsperber asked me. I'll make a new reply that includes all of the answers.