[Mobius]

Hi everyone!

As you probably know I'm not that active because my PC is broken and in repairs. Well, it was broken until yesterday. I turned it on, enjoyed many new features and realized that there finally was an audio card.

The enjoyment lasted only for a few minutes: the monitor suddenly became black except for a small and mobile box saying "Not Optimum Mode - Recommended Mode 1280*1024" <--- or very similar numbers, I don't remember them exactly right now. There also was a "?" marked with yellow suggesting me that clicking "?" should have been enough to tell me something useful about the problem(but nothing happened).

That's basically what used to happen over two months ago, when my PC "died". Back then I switched the res to the one suggested above but nothing really changed. I tried to do it yesterday but the monitor became black even before I could access the desktop and change the res.

I can give for sure that the problem in only about the monitor. Although I haven't been able to use Alt-F4 to turn the computer off the music was still going(Beethoven...), so everything else was functioning. Two months ago my cousin took away only the PC, leaving here the monitor and the wires. If the people who repaired my PC didn't notice the problem it's logical for me to think that the problem is caused by what my cousin left here(monitor and wires). I talked with my cousin, he has apparently excluded the wires as cause of the problem. He thinks it might be the monitor or the video card(which hasn't changed) but he still has to check the PC himself to be sure.

I'd like to hear suggestions. The situation is already sad for me because I'm responsible for INFASA's release delay(over two months without FREDding and testing are a lot). The mod should've already been released...I want to work...

[WMCoolmon]

Sorry, I just saw that today, and I had to...

Have you tried safe mode? That should let you get in to change the resolution. Also, the problem could be the refresh rate - you can get at that in the advanced display options. A good 'safe' value is 60hz, especially for an LCD screen since you don't have to worry about flicker. If you want to bump it up, then you can do so after you restart the computer - just be sure to wait 15 seconds when you change it, if it doesn't work, so Windows sets it back to the one you set with safe mode.

However, it doesn't sound good that it spontaneously conked out like that. It could mean the video card went bad or the power supply has issues. You weren't starting a game or trying to play a video, or anything else that might have a fullscreen mode, when it died, were you?

[Mobius]

Sorry, I forgot an important thing. The mobile box also suggested the safe value of 60Hz.

I tried the safe mode over two months ago and I don't remember if even with the safe mode on the problem continued to occur.

When it "died" I was using a new program(Nero music or something similar) to listen at Beethoven's tracks. I was also checking the folders to see if anything has changed during the repairs, so no FSO or videoclips that require a fullscreen mode to be fully enjoyed.

[Aardwolf]

Funny cartoon you got there.

[WMCoolmon]

I assume you tried wiggling the wires or something -  if the signal went completely dead it'd probably show a different message, but it may have been that a pin or two went out instead. Does the BIOS and everything still work?

Beyond safe more or command line mode I can't really suggest much. Well, you could try a Linux LiveCD, but even if that worked you wouldn't have really solved the problem. It would be informative about whether the monitor was actually the problem or not.

The other thing I can think of right now is that maybe a heat sink got loose somewhere, and it only worked at first because it was still partially on, but after running for a few minutes it heated up and the rest of the adhesive came off. That would probably be the easiest thing to fix, hardware-wise, as long as you've got some of the thermal grease handy.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Instead of safe mode you could try VGA mode to get into normal windows.  That should let you change your settings too.  Another thing to check is the monitor itself.  If it has a control panel or menu system see if it's not set to some crazy resolution or setting that your video card may not support.  Also make sure you aren't using a cable that's too long.  Some video cards (especially those built in ones on off the shelf PC's) just don't have the power to output more than about 6-12 feet. 

[Mobius]

I changed the monitor and everything is fine. I'm now attempting to get my old internet connection back.

There's one big problem: although the documents are safe my C is gone. No FSO, no BtRL, no WCS, no to all the games and programs I've installed before. I'm afraid they're all gone but it's kind of possible that they're hidden somewhere...what do you think?

[WMCoolmon]

You might be able to recover them with an undelete program, but it's an iffy prospect at best. Assuming you haven't overwritten them, some undelete programs will be able to figure out the type of files left by scanning the entire hard drive for file contents. If the hard drive was fragmented, this probably won't work too well. Otherwise, you might be able to get some files off of there, but you won't know their names or where they were located on the hard drive - merely that it's a Microsoft Word file of X kilobytes in size.

If you lost something irreplaceable, it's worth it. If you just need to redownload stuff, it's probably not worth it.

Problem is that wiping the hard drive erases the FAT table, so the entire directory structure and file names are lost. I don't know if there are any circumstances where you could recover that info. There's a lot of different undelete programs out there.

If it looks like the partition just isn't showing up, it's easier to recover the files...in theory, anyway.

Note that not all problems which are undelete utilities do the same thing, even if they say they do the same thing. Test them first if you can, especially if they have a free demo - it can save you from spending $80 on a program that just can't recover anything in your circumstances.

[Mobius]

I managed to get the connection...

Thank you for your precious help, WMCoolmon. I'll take a look. My cousin says, however, that my stuff is lost. I'll re-DL everything about FSO.