New pc, wont work after reboot - OS issues?

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First of all, sorry if i put this in the wrong section - its my first post on the forums, and i really dont know if this is an OS issue or not.

Anyway, I recently completed my new pc. After installing windows, everything loads up fine, and I installed all of my drivers - however, this is where things went down hill. Everything seemed to be working, but of course, I had to restart the pc for all the driver updates to take effect. After restarting, the PC does the POST and whatnot, then displays the black windows loading screen - all the fans, LEDs, etc are running and everything sounds fine, but then right as the windows loading screen seems as if its about to switch to the user account screen, the monitor goes to the "off mode in 5 secs" screen (almost as if its in a sleep mode). If i turn it off, and back on, the monitor shows a no signal screen ( this sort of hints that it is a gfx/display issue). The pc continues to run, and the HD action sounds like it continued to load up windows and is waiting on the login screen. Unfortunately there is no display signal.

Now, like I said, it would seem like im having some display issues, but all of the pc hardware managed to boot up the first time after installing windows. Which has got me confused. All of the hardware must work, run properly, etc if it was running correctly. I have even reformatted and done the whole xp installation over again - to get the same results. So am I having XP issues, hardware issues, bios issues??

I really dont know whats going on, but it sure is annoying - so close to a finished system, yet so far :suspiciou

system specs:

-Windows XP home edition
-ABIT AN8-SLI
-AMD 3500 939 64bit
-EVGA 6800 GT - (sli card, but only running 1 for now, and yes the mobo is in normal mode)
-80gb Seagate 7200rpm hard drive
-2x 512MB Corsair ValueSelect RAM
-ASPIRE ATX 520W power supply

If anyone can help me, it would be much appreciated :grinthumb
Thanks, Scott.
 
It sounds like something went wrong with the OS install. First though, have you checked that the video card has its own power connected via the 6 pin power connector?

If you need to reinstall windows make sure you do a full install with a complete format. Set boot order to CDROM/Floppy/ Hard Drive, insert the XP CDROM and reboot. Delete the partitions and start over. One thing I do is set up C as a 8GB-10GB partition and load only windows in there. The only hassle with this is you have to be very aware during every install to change the target drive to D: vice C:. The benefits are it is qyuick and easy to defrag your OS and it gives windows its own place to work without dealing with other programs. It also insulates your data from some C: specific virus' and last but not least, reinstalls go quick because you only reformat 10GB instead of 120GB.

After windows installs then load just enough drivers to get yourself on-line and then update windows. AFter windows is set load the latest chipset driver. Then load the latest Nvidia display driver (78.01). Now load your virus software and then the firewall software.
 
although I have not tried installing windows to a seperate partition, I have already re-formatted and repartitioned the disk 3 times. Each time - windows loads the first time, and i install the drivers. Then the system wont reboot after restarting.

I also checked the power connection to the video card, and tried a couple different wiring setups. I get the same results.

Would reformatting and repartitioning windows onto its own seperate disk partition really fix anything? I see how it can help in the long run, but before I go and start over again, could this possibly solve the issue?

Thanks, and any more suggestions would be much appreciated. :grinthumb
 
wow, thats odd...

So after all this technical talk and possible complicated solutions...

I plugged in my second monitor and WAAA-LA...
its alive!

I really have no clue why my main monitor wouldnt work, I had been using it with my old system - and it works fine. I was running it in a dual monitor setup with this secondary monitor

The other monitor (1 that wasnt working) is larger... was it drawing too much power or something? Heh, well atleast its working now, but im afraid to restart the pc :p. Thanks for the help, i'll post again if the same problem occurs. This might only be a temporary solutions, i guess i'll find out when i restart the pc.
 
well, the basics seem to be working, i'll get my monitor situation figured out later. I got all the drivers installed, and all of my basic programs - but now I cant get my sound to work. All drivers are good, dxdiag sound test fails only because i say i cant hear the sound, and nothing wrong in device manager. Im using the onboard sound for the an8-sli mobo - it is a mini-card that runs on the AC97 drivers. The speakers are all powered up, and i can hear them running, but no sound - from windows media player, winamp, or quicktime. I also tried just using headphones - no dice. I think i'll try running my card from my old system - see if i can get anything out of that 1.

Hmm, computers really are an endless source of frustration.
 
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