safe mode boot and monitor problem

Originally Posted by DJNafey

I don't know whether this will be much use to you but it sounds similar to a problem that I answered for someone else last night (and have submitted to D-A-L as a suggestion for an FAQ). You might be surprised how often settings appear to change themselves just because you've moved your system! If it does help, it could save you some money so it's worth a go ...........

"New graphics settings mean the monitor switches off / the image is streaky / the image is shaky"

Your problem appears to be that the refresh rate of the graphics card settings aren't compatible with the monitor. I'm not sure how to explain that very clearly but, basically, your image on your screen is updated dozens of times every second. A typical setting is a refresh rate of 75 Hertz - this means the screen image is recreated 75 times every second. Your eyes see the updates but it's so fast that your brain doesn't actually register it. Different systems support different refresh rates - better graphics cards and better monitors support higher / faster refresh rates. This reduces eye strain or fatigue because, like I said, you can see the screen "flickering" each time it is refreshed - you just don't actually realise that you're seeing it because it's so fast (kind of like when they used to show subliminal images of ice creams at the cinema and you didn't realise that you'd seen it!). Anyway, that sounds like WHAT has happened.

The reason WHY it has happened is because your monitor can only handle certain refresh rates. By changing your display settings, the graphics card appears to now be set to a refresh rate that your monitor can't display.

The SOLUTION to the problem should be as follows. Boot the system up into Safe Mode, like you did before. Go into the display settings and confirm that it is set to 640x480 resolution, 16 colours and then go to the Advanced options and change the Refresh Rate setting to "Default" or "75Hz". Click 'OK' on each of the screens and reboot the PC normally. If that didn't work, reboot the PC and repeat the Safe Mode process again, selecting a different refresh rate. As different systems support different refresh rates, I'm afraid that I can't tell you which one will work.

Once you've got it working properly, go back to the display settings and put it back to 800x600 resolution with an appropriate number of colours and an appropriate refresh rate. To know what is "appropriate", you may need to consult the documentation for your system.

Incidentally, this problem is often caused if the correct drivers for your graphics card and monitor are not installed. If the Display Settings screen, above where it shows the resolution, says something like "Default monitor" or "Plug 'n' Play monitor" or "Standard PCI graphics adapter", then you often won't have the right settings available for your system.