# Display adapter problems

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 18, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388 "2004-08-18T13:58:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388/1 "2004-08-18T13:58:30Z")

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Recently Ive been having trouble with my display. For some reason, starting several months ago, my monitor would abruptly stop receiving or displaying signal.

Known symptoms:

1. This always happens within a few minutes after or during startup.

2. Its never happened when running a 3D application so I don’t hink its a faulty driver issue. It might be due to problems with the previous Radeon installation, but I;ve found no good guide to eliminating previous installation artifacts. The only one I found said useless stuff such as “their’ll be like 3-4 things listed here and g ahead and delte the last one.” In other words, terribly vague to run a reg hack off of.

3. Because of the timing it might be a flaw in the hardware for the radeon, but it can’t be due to pverheating, unless its overheating only at a specific time. Ditto fo the monitor. Seems unlikely.

4. Doesn’t always happen. Reboting clears the problem.

Anyone have any ideas at all?

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**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388/2 "2004-08-18T15:05:36Z")

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Almost forgot: Radeon 9800 se 128 MB

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1.66 ghz

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**Author:** ![Anonymous\_Coward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388/3 "2004-08-18T16:00:10Z")

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Try this tool for uninstalling ATI components. It’s an official ATI utility.

[ATI Uninstaller](http://www2.ati.com/drivers/cat-uninstaller.exe)

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**Author:** ![Anonymous\_Coward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388/4 "2004-08-18T16:05:04Z")

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Also, one of the better ATI fan websites is called [Rage3D](http://www.rage3d.com) . I usually check out their forums when I’m having ATI issues, and I just found a 12 page thread of [people having the same issue.](http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33752579&page=1&pp=30) .

Good luck!

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**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/display-adapter-problems/260388/5 "2004-08-18T17:32:17Z")

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WoW, thanks guys! I’ve never seen that utility before and I scoured the ATi webpage a while back!