Monitor doesn't come on in normal mode

Computer--Compaq 3.5mhz running Vista, 2GB of RAM.
The computer bootstraps fine and will boot to the Windows bar (the little bar at the bottom of the screen) and if you hit F8 enough, lets you select normal or safe modes. If you try to boot the rest of the way in normal mode it disconnects from the monitor somehow. You can hear the hard drive spinning like it's booting, you can even hear the Windows boot sound, but the screen is blank and stays blank after the hard drive quits spinning. I hooked an old CRT monitor to it and it does the same thing--only with the CRT monitor the "on" light blinks, like it's saying the computer isn't connected to it. It’s like the display information got set to something that the display can’t show, if that makes any sense.

IF you boot to safe mode (with or without networking) it comes up just fine. I've run Glary Utilities, Registry Cleaner, Spybot SD, TDSSKiller, and Windows Restore and Recovery with no bad stuff popping up, but it still does the same thing.

Any thoughts?

Keith

 

This is pretty common and is most likely an incompatible video resolution or setting,the simplest brute force way is to remove the video card driver then reinstall.

First you need to find out what video card or video device you have if you know download the latest driver from the manufacturers website. If you don't know check the specifications of your computer at HP's website or post the model number of your computer or link to its specs web page.

Alternatively run this program in safe mode,generate a report and upload it as an attachment with your next post.

http://majorgeeks.com/Speccy_d6358.html

Once you have the correct driver uninstall the old one from Start,control panel,programs,restart the computer then reinstall the latest driver,if the driver has the clean install option select it to delete all old settings.

If this doesn't work uninstall the driver again then run this program and clean the drivers related to your video card.

http://majorgeeks.com/Speccy_d6358.html

Now install the latest driver.

 

I tried a variety of different things, but the computer kept getting weirder and weirder. Finally I dug out the "restore" disks and did a backup and restore. I'm at the point now where I have all the hardware working again (except the old flatscreen. It appears to be dead), but the software and documentation I backed up is in a file called "C" (not c:\, the file name is C) on the harddrive. How do I get it back? Everything else has had instructions and/or was automatic.
Plus, I looked at one of the backup files (Alwil software, for Avast! anti-virus) and it had a bunch of files but no executable... Hmmm.
Keith

 

What software did you use to create the backup was in windows backup? Does the backup file have the file extension .bak?

If so the files are still intact but you will have to manually alter the file extension to the original file type depending on the file then you have can open and browse as normal e.g change the anti virus to .exe then it should work as normal,this is good for a small amount of important files.

If you would like to restore all of them you'll need to use the program you created the backups with and restore from backup.

Post your operating system.