Hi all,

I just literally threw a system together from parts laying around. (My first!)
PII 450
224MB Ram (128+64+32)
basic S3 video card
SB 16 bit sound card

Everything went perfectly, I had an old HD, wouldn't start windows, so I re-loaded Win 98 over itself. Perfect, watched the 30 min. Microsoft screens flip by as it loaded.

It re-booted as usual, found drivers, etc. Everything was perfect. I shut down, grabbed some dinner, feeling really good about this. I got back, fired it up and NO VIDEO!

It passes POST, (One good beep at the end) loads windows, (windows start up chimes sound) 'cept I can't see anything! I know all is well, as I hit the Windows key and "U" and enter and it shuts down. I'd guess if the V-card failed I'd be in a heap of poop and I'd never get as far as I did.

Wassup with that? I guess either the video driver is corrupt, or I need to load drivers for my monitor, but I can't see anything!

Tried booting via start-up disk - it booted fine, I could see DOS loading from the floppy - but nothing on the screen.
Of course, I re-seated the V-card and the monitor is attattched securely.

Suggestions? PLEASE!

Boot in safe mode. Hold down the control key after restarting and wait for the boot menu to come up. Oh, and have you checked your cable connection? (Is it plugged into the video card?? Maybe you have an onboard video card that hasn't been disabled??, Does the monitor pilot light go from orange to green when you boot???)

Also clean the pins on the vid card and reseat.

How does one tell if they are booting into safe mode when there's NO DISPLAY?
JEEEEZZZZ

Try a different vid card, to at least be able too check the bios setup.
If another vidcard comes up blank too, use the CMOS reset jumpers or R&R the CMOS battery to reset BIOS to defaults.

ALSO, check that all internal cables are firmly seated and the RAM as well.

Turned out to be a bad connection at the monitor, not the card! Thanks for your help!