strangest MAJOR problem ever

[Doglike]

Hope you can help...
Yesterday played bf2 everything was okay. Today-afternoon looking through my bfhq stats and suddenly my monitor turns black! can't turn it back on so i reboot. Try to start BF2 but its really weird. the splash screen would normally show 10 sec or so and the game would start, but now its showed 1 sec and i get various black screens and my desktop again. system recovery didn't work.

Oh I should mention that in the morning when I turned my pc on the factory setting for my monitor were active again. had to adjust the horizontal and vertical size again. really weird cause I didn't change anything.

radeon 9800 xt with ati catalyst 5.6 on 19 inch crt monitor by philips always worked fine. pentium 3.00ghz 512 ram

1.How could my monitor turn black out of nowhere?
2.is my problem monitor-related or is that just coincidence or a byproduct of the problem?
3.WHAT SHOULD I DO?

I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown :cry:

[Merlin]

Dude, It could be the start of your 9800 giving up the ghost. I had a 9800 Pro (R360 chip same as the XT) that went boom suddenly, In similar fashion to what you describe. Can you play any games on it?

If it is your card about to blow (hope it isnt BTW) ther isnt much you can do. But it deffinetly sounds graphics card related. Can you test it in one of your mates machines?

[Doglike]

thanks for the reply.
Not what i was hoping to hear BTW...
Tested ut2004 on the intenet and it was smooth as silk. i'll try the new 5.7 drivers first, I'll see if I can test it in another comp. but I'm not good with hardware. NO experience whatsoever.

[ZiRo]

Monitor going into power save mode??

[Doglike]

^^ thats not it :)
I've uninstalled bf2, uninstalled ati5.6, installed ati 5.7 and bf2 but still the same. Any other ideas? Or is it time to buy a new videocard :hmm:

[lcplsickoll]

When the monitor goes black does the power light change color. Green to amber? Your 9800 may be on it's way out

[Doglike]

yes it did! oh sh*t... but other games like rome total war and UT all run well. Howcome it's only bf2?

[ZiRo]

FS

Its your monitor.

If the settings reset to factory and the monitor is switching to power save / standby then its your monitor! turn off powersave mode in the display properites. EG. Never off.

In windows, right click desktop, properties, middle selection, power settings etc..

Im in germany on a german computer so i cant read any of the labels but i know its that window...

[GreatWhiteShark]

I know of others that are running in 9800's in medium to low settings in this forum and some that run some settings at high.

I would
1) do some trolling and PM them for advice.
2) consider the above about the terminal tendencies of your 9800
3) consider if you have overclocked the 9800 and reset it to default
4) consider the issues of heat/stress and cooling your 9800
5) look at this link for BF2 game issues http://forums.totalbf2.com/showthread.php?t=18709

[Doglike]

@ZiRo: it's not that, my screensaver and powersave are all off/disabled. My card is not oc'ed either. I find it strange that the splash screen is away after one second. It looks like a software problem that way imo.

[x2pixel]

try a reinstall

[simwiz1984]

Have you sorted the problem out yet ? Well IMO i think the monitor is hitting a refresh rate outside the range of your monitor !

Try going into profiles under mydocuments/battlefield 2/ profiles

then find a .con file called video.con, you will find a line -

VideoSettings.setResolution 1024x768@100Hz

Change accordingly. Either set to your desktop refresh rate found under properties-settings-advanced-monitor by right clicking desktop

Since you did explain that your settings went back to factory settings i would just try editing this. Well since this is the res, refresh that bf2 will run at.

I did have a blank screen on running the exe but realised that the video settings had to be changed, i think the default is 60hz so i basically changed it to my desktop setting of 100.

hope you get fragging soldier !

[Doglike]

Yes!!

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! That was it! I looked in video.con and there it was: 1280x960@200Hz. changed it into 1024x768@100H and it worked! You're an angel (well not really but thanks anyway :p )
Other posters thanks too!

ps. Still curious, how the F*** did it change suddenly to 200Hz while I was doing nothing out of the ordinary?

[lcplsickoll]

200Hz?! Hell of a monitor you got there. Seriously I have no clue as to why that would happen.

[simwiz1984]

all in a days work :o lol np glad to help, Instead of a angel just see me as a commanding officer ! lol

That reminds me ! i must try becoming a squad leader sometime, something i havnt tried yet :o

have fun fraggin (i know i know, it isnt q3 :/ )

l8er.