Hey Guys,

I have an ATI Radeon 9200 SE Graphics Card (128mb) in my machine which is running an XP 3000 and 512mb RAM. I use XP Home with SP2.

For some reason, whenever I try and run certain online games (this one for example) I run into problems. As soon as the game loads and I click "start", the game appears for a fraction of a second before my monitor switches itself off. The PC stays on, but no matter what I do I can't get the display back without rebooting the machine - i've tried Alt+F4, Ctrl/Alt/Del, you name it but nothing does anything - the monitor stays in standby

To the best of my knowledge this only occurrs with Shockwave games but it's a bit frustrating DVD playback is fine (perfect in fact) so i'm fairly sure the graphics card isn't at fault but i'm not sure what else it could be. Could my monitor be the source of the problem?

K.

 

I've had this problem before. I had set the refresh rate on the graphics card too high (100Hz i think!) and the monitor couldn't handle this. I reduced the adapter refresh rate and all worked fine.

HTH

 

I used to have a problem like that a few years ago.. It was caused by the monitor being powered from the pc power supply, rather than being plugged straight into the socket..
Might be worth a try?

 

I already have the monitor powered separately but thanks for the response

r1co, thanks - i'll check the refresh rate when I get a chance and let you know

K.

 

Well - just tried altering the refresh rate of the monitor from 75, to 65hz (lowest setting) but it didn;t make any difference

I'm just downloading the latest drivers for my card - i'm currently running 6.14.10.6483 which as far as I can tell are pretty old now. We'll see if that makes a difference...

K.

 

I have no idea what your screen is set to; but is it within the monitor acceptable range ? ie 1024*768, this can and will, upset it.

 

yep agreed true lowering your refresh rate and drop your resoultion to somfing like 800x600 to see if it works

 

Have you got the default windows monitor driver or a driver specific to your monitor from the manufacturer?

 

Apart from the fact that you have a serious headache and feel sick.......

 

Another thought...could it be something to do with direct x. Try installing the latest version and see if this solves the prob.

hth.

 

Thanks - will do

Thanks to all others who have replied - I was initially using the drivers supplied with the card, but am now using the latest drivers from the ATI website (which haven't solved the problem - 28mb download too! Grrr!)

My monitor (to the best of my knowledge) is perfectly happy at 1024 x 768 - i've certainly not experienced any problems thus far although it is certainly a few years old. It's being replaced with a TFT in February. The refresh rates i've been using are those which appear when the "only show refresh rates my monitor can use" (or something like that!) checkbox is ticked so again, there shouldn't be a problem in that sense although the monitor *is* using Windows drivers.

Lol at the headache comment

Kelvin.