Hello, everyone. My PC has onboard graphics. During my absence from the house, my son decided to go into the PC's BIOS and 'adjust' the 'Shared Memory'. He set it to 'non', the other options were: 32, 16 & 8MB. He apparently, wanted to disable the 'Shared Memory' that the onboard graphics adaptor takes from the main memory (512 MB), which results in the PC having an actual 480 MBs of RAM instead of 512 MB. He did this so that the AGP card could run the monitor independent of the motherboard's onboard graphics. What he did not realise was that the PC does not have an independent graphics card!! The result of this is when the machine is booted up, all I get are a series of system bleeps & a completely blank monitor! I have no way of correcting his error, as I have no screen display to work from. Any ideas as to how I can fix this problem. The only thing I can think of is to install a graphics card with a plug & play capability & hope that I can get the monitor to work. Any help, as always, would be appreciated. Dave.
you could do a BIOS reset to put everything back to it's default setting, just post if you don't know what i'm talking about
Thanks, guys. No, sorry, I don't know how to do a BIOS reset - please help! I'm typing this from a local library computer & my 'session time' is up. I'll check back on Monday for your help. Cheers, guys. Dave.
right there are 2 ways to reset BIOS / clear CMOS, unplug your pc & remove the lid (if you dont have an anti static wrist strap, just make sure you touch an exposed metal part of the pc case every minute of so while messing inside your pc) way 1, look for a battery (like a big watch battery) nearby will be 3 pins, with a plastic jumper on pins 1 & 2 (i think) pull off the jumper & put it on pins 2 & 3 for at least 10 seconds, then replace the jumper onto pins 1 & 2 way 2, remove the battery for at least 10 seconds (but NOT with metal tweesers) then put the lid back on & plug pc back in & power up all should be ok now
Thanks, Dave. Would these pins be the same ones I altered to switch the FSB to 266 Mhz when I installed my Athlon XP 2400+ - upgading from a 1.25 chip, which was set at pins 1 & 2 (100 Mhz) setting? I remember I had to change the pins from 1 & 2 to 2 & 3 on that occasion. Cheers, Dave.
NO these pins will be located near the battery, and will be labeled on the M/B as "reset BIOS" or "clear CMOS", you are right about the type of jumper but do NOT alter the FSB or you will either overclock or underclock your CPU
If you don't know where the Clear CMOS jumper is, yank out the battery for a minute and put it back in.
Cheers, Dave, Big Bro and all. Found the jumper pin next to the battery and reset it. Hey presto!! Everything works now. Pulled a few little leads out in the process (LED for HDD) and 2 little single pin leads that (I think) determine which button I have to press to boot-up my PC (one boots-up and the other resets or something like that. Anyway, I've put them all back (fiddly little things to get back in, btw). Everything seems to work fine and I've reset the BIOS from its defaults to my personal preferences. All in all, thanks very much guys. I would not have had a clue what to do without your great help. Dave. :beer:
