problem: occassional grayscale screen upon startup

Hi. I'm a relative newbie and my system occassionally will startup by briefly
showing auto-detect:digital on the monitor just as it normally does, then the
monitor screen willl just go dark for a second or two, then show a grayscale
with horizontal lines between the shades, then show a grayscale without the
lines between shades. This process will continually repeat itself,
alternating between these three screens. A few times I have heard the chiming
tone sound Windows uses when my computer user/password screen usually comes
up, but the screen continues to only show the alternating screens I
described. I have to resort to powering off with the main power button in
order to get out of this, and then restarting with the power button again
(usually it will then startup and work properly). I have tried running
diagnostics accessed by pressing F12 during startup but have no indicated
problems. A poster to the Dell Forums reported the same problem but no
solution was given and I've received no response to an inquiry to the poster.
I've tried different troubleshooting diagnostics Dell has suggested with no
luck. Could this be a Vista related problem, or any other ideas on the cause?
Thanks for any help. Corey
--
(new in June 07) Dell Dimension E521 desktop, AMD 64x2 4400+ 2.3 GZ
processor, Vista Home Premium, ATI Radeon x1300 series 256mb video card ,
Creative X-Fi pci audio card, Dell E228WFP lcd monitor

A. Reseat the video card. Actually remove it and replace it.

B. Try a new cable.

C. This is Dell's problem, make THEM fix it and be relentless.

"CoreyF" <> wrote in message news:AAC3BE79-D6D4-4022-A7B3-...
> Hi. I'm a relative newbie and my system occassionally will startup by briefly
> showing auto-detect:digital on the monitor just as it normally does, then the
> monitor screen willl just go dark for a second or two, then show a grayscale
> with horizontal lines between the shades, then show a grayscale without the
> lines between shades. This process will continually repeat itself,
> alternating between these three screens. A few times I have heard the chiming
> tone sound Windows uses when my computer user/password screen usually comes
> up, but the screen continues to only show the alternating screens I
> described. I have to resort to powering off with the main power button in
> order to get out of this, and then restarting with the power button again
> (usually it will then startup and work properly). I have tried running
> diagnostics accessed by pressing F12 during startup but have no indicated
> problems. A poster to the Dell Forums reported the same problem but no
> solution was given and I've received no response to an inquiry to the poster.
> I've tried different troubleshooting diagnostics Dell has suggested with no
> luck. Could this be a Vista related problem, or any other ideas on the cause?
> Thanks for any help. Corey
> --
> (new in June 07) Dell Dimension E521 desktop, AMD 64x2 4400+ 2.3 GZ
> processor, Vista Home Premium, ATI Radeon x1300 series 256mb video card ,
> Creative X-Fi pci audio card, Dell E228WFP lcd monitor

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm leary of messing with the video card: I've
never done it (although instructions I looked up on the web seem pretty
simple), and the computer came with a 1 year in home warranty for hardware
repairs so I'm afraid I might void the warranty unless they specifically give
me permission to open it up and mess with things. Unless someone else points
me in a different direction, and the general belief is that it is a hardware
problem with the video card, I guess I will have to jump through any hoops
Dell puts in front of me (I will be relentless though!).

I neglected to mention that the computer also has an ATI Theatre Pro 650 TV
card installed, in case that could make any difference, and the chiming tone
I hear during the grayscale screen actually occurs at the time the Windows
logo flag appears during startup.

I plan on also contacting ATI in case they have any ideas. Naturally the ATI
website says to contact the computer mfg if you didn't buy the retail
version, Dell says to check to see if it's a Vista problem, and in general
they all want to pass it off onto someone else and not pay for a service call
to let someone who knows something look at the thing. Thanks again for your
input on my problem.
--
(new in June 07) Dell Dimension E521 desktop, AMD 64x2 4400+ 2.3 GZ
processor, Vista Home Premium, ATI Radeon x1300 series 256mb video card ,
Creative X-Fi pci audio card, Dell E228WFP lcd monitor additional: also has
ATI Theatre Pro 650 TV card installed


"Spirit" wrote:

> A. Reseat the video card. Actually remove it and replace it.
>
> B. Try a new cable.
>
> C. This is Dell's problem, make THEM fix it and be relentless.
>
> "CoreyF" <> wrote in message news:AAC3BE79-D6D4-4022-A7B3-...
> > Hi. I'm a relative newbie and my system occassionally will startup by briefly
> > showing auto-detect:digital on the monitor just as it normally does, then the
> > monitor screen willl just go dark for a second or two, then show a grayscale
> > with horizontal lines between the shades, then show a grayscale without the
> > lines between shades. This process will continually repeat itself,
> > alternating between these three screens. A few times I have heard the chiming
> > tone sound Windows uses when my computer user/password screen usually comes
> > up, but the screen continues to only show the alternating screens I
> > described. I have to resort to powering off with the main power button in
> > order to get out of this, and then restarting with the power button again
> > (usually it will then startup and work properly). I have tried running
> > diagnostics accessed by pressing F12 during startup but have no indicated
> > problems. A poster to the Dell Forums reported the same problem but no
> > solution was given and I've received no response to an inquiry to the poster.
> > I've tried different troubleshooting diagnostics Dell has suggested with no
> > luck. Could this be a Vista related problem, or any other ideas on the cause?
> > Thanks for any help. Corey
> > --
> > (new in June 07) Dell Dimension E521 desktop, AMD 64x2 4400+ 2.3 GZ
> > processor, Vista Home Premium, ATI Radeon x1300 series 256mb video card ,
> > Creative X-Fi pci audio card, Dell E228WFP lcd monitor
>

It sounds like a hardware issue to me. Make sure you do have up
to date drivers and if so then Michael needs a call............

"CoreyF" <> wrote in message news:884346A3-4AC9-4EA1-ACFD-...
> Thanks for the quick reply. I'm leary of messing with the video card: I've
> never done it (although instructions I looked up on the web seem pretty
> simple), and the computer came with a 1 year in home warranty for hardware
> repairs so I'm afraid I might void the warranty unless they specifically give
> me permission to open it up and mess with things. Unless someone else points
> me in a different direction, and the general belief is that it is a hardware
> problem with the video card, I guess I will have to jump through any hoops
> Dell puts in front of me (I will be relentless though!).
>
> I neglected to mention that the computer also has an ATI Theatre Pro 650 TV
> card installed, in case that could make any difference, and the chiming tone
> I hear during the grayscale screen actually occurs at the time the Windows
> logo flag appears during startup.
>
> I plan on also contacting ATI in case they have any ideas. Naturally the ATI
> website says to contact the computer mfg if you didn't buy the retail
> version, Dell says to check to see if it's a Vista problem, and in general
> they all want to pass it off onto someone else and not pay for a service call
> to let someone who knows something look at the thing. Thanks again for your
> input on my problem.
> --
> (new in June 07) Dell Dimension E521 desktop, AMD 64x2 4400+ 2.3 GZ
> processor, Vista Home Premium, ATI Radeon x1300 series 256mb video card ,
> Creative X-Fi pci audio card, Dell E228WFP lcd monitor additional: also has
> ATI Theatre Pro 650 TV card installed
>
>
> "Spirit" wrote:
>
>> A. Reseat the video card. Actually remove it and replace it.
>>
>> B. Try a new cable.
>>
>> C. This is Dell's problem, make THEM fix it and be relentless.
>>
>> "CoreyF" <> wrote in message news:AAC3BE79-D6D4-4022-A7B3-...
>> > Hi. I'm a relative newbie and my system occassionally will startup by briefly
>> > showing auto-detect:digital on the monitor just as it normally does, then the
>> > monitor screen willl just go dark for a second or two, then show a grayscale
>> > with horizontal lines between the shades, then show a grayscale without the
>> > lines between shades. This process will continually repeat itself,
>> > alternating between these three screens. A few times I have heard the chiming
>> > tone sound Windows uses when my computer user/password screen usually comes
>> > up, but the screen continues to only show the alternating screens I
>> > described. I have to resort to powering off with the main power button in
>> > order to get out of this, and then restarting with the power button again
>> > (usually it will then startup and work properly). I have tried running
>> > diagnostics accessed by pressing F12 during startup but have no indicated
>> > problems. A poster to the Dell Forums reported the same problem but no
>> > solution was given and I've received no response to an inquiry to the poster.
>> > I've tried different troubleshooting diagnostics Dell has suggested with no
>> > luck. Could this be a Vista related problem, or any other ideas on the cause?
>> > Thanks for any help. Corey
>> > --
>> > (new in June 07) Dell Dimension E521 desktop, AMD 64x2 4400+ 2.3 GZ
>> > processor, Vista Home Premium, ATI Radeon x1300 series 256mb video card ,
>> > Creative X-Fi pci audio card, Dell E228WFP lcd monitor
>>

This is John at Dell headquarters.

Removing/reseating cards for troubleshooting in no way voids you
warranty: in fact, our phone technicians have people do it all the tim
to determine root cause of hardware problems.

That being said, this could be a hardware problem, or could be a Vist
problem. I would recommend starting the machine in safe mode an
checking the version number and date of the driver. It is possible tha
a recent update caused the problem, and if that's the case, a quic
driver rollback may save you some time and energy, as a driver proble
wouldn't be solved by a card replacement.

If a driver rollback/reinstallation doesn't resolve the issue, the
we're probably looking at a card replacement. If that's the case, I ca
set up a dispatch for you:


ATTN: John

John
Dell Customer Advocat

--
DellCA