Here's the problem. Recently my graphics card has been taking a while in outputting to the monitor (Octigen 17in) From a bootup in the morning it takes a while for a picture to appear on screen. The monitor's green light blinks as if it has "found" an input but doesn't output anything to the screen until a few minutes pass, by which the machine has booted into Windows. If I shutdown and reboot it gives me a picture instantly. I left the monitor on standby (yellow light) and tried rebooting after a few hours, the same as the morning boot up occured. The graphics card is a Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb (Please tell me it isn't wacked :( )

if you dump the video drivers or disable them, reboot with windows video drivers and you get a screen right away, the result is the drivers for the video are corrupt.

Forgot to mention, no output occurs during the POST either. Infact I don't see it at all.

Get a power supply suitable for nvidia 8800 if this is not already done.A powerful video card like the one you have will show a weak power supply right away by unstable conditions of all sorts.Make sure all the power connectors to the card are set properly.

Video symptoms are often just that - symptoms - and there is actually nothing wrong with the video hardware - something else is wrong. You could try the monitor with another computer, and/or removing the live AC to the case and removing and re-installing the graphics card, and/or removing and re-installing the main connector and the power connector to the card if applicable from the PS, but it's likely that's not going to solve your problem. Normally the video drivers have no effect until Windows has started to load. All cards start up in a basic VGA mode the mboard supports and you should always see the post screens. The most likely thing is you have a defective power supply. Failing power supplies are common and can cause your symptoms. Check your PS. See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... If your power supply doesn't have enough capacity to handle your system, it may work okay for a while but will eventually be damaged. Bare minimum in this case you should have 430 watts capacity. ...... If you have never seen the post screens the way the monitor is presently connected: If the card has two video output ports, some cards will not show the post screens unless the monitor is connected to the primary output port - see the card's manual - if it is connected to the secondary output port, try connecting the monitor to the other ouput port.

Ok I left the machine running while I was at work with the monitor off. Turned it on and sure enough it blinked.. Thanks for the help, I think I'll be whipping out the VGA cable for the HDTV for a while :)