Good story, read for a laugh.....


This guy calls me up because his PC is just thrashed full of spyware and viruses. Hes had broadband for 2 years and never install a virus scanner or spyware remover. I accept the challenge stating that I may have to scrap the whole thing if its that bad.

I get the PC and go to plug it into my KVM switch and discover a problem. The onboard VGA connector is missing in action. I call the guy up and this is what I hear. "Uh yeah when I went to unplug the monitor I didnt know you had to uscrew the cable so I just uhh jerked on it and yanked until it came loose - is that bad?" - he he ya think.

Anyways the connector is apparently still connect to his monitor cable - not that it makes any difference it sure as hell aint where it should be. I toss an old PCI graphics card in the machine and it fires right up. Continue on with OS reinstall. Yada yada so and so on.

My problem (besides this guy is a focktard) is that whenever I reboot Windows 98 SE I loose the video settings -- they get set back to 640x480 256 color. If I shut down and then turn the PC back on everything is fine.

This PC is an HP XE783 running Windows 98 SE
I installed an old Cirrus Logic 5446 PCI card - its all I have at the moment

Does anyone have a clue where to start - I googled the shiat out of it and found nothing. Damn him for being an idiot - made my job ten times as hard.

Even though windows probably has the drivers i would still look for an updated version of them. if that dosent work then it MAY be your graphics card.....but then again i am not sure.

I would look in the bios for an option to disable onboard video.

Sorry for being a newb and not including info.

In the BIOS there is only 2 options - onboard video with 1 MB or 512K - no option to disable.

Have tried using newest drivers - no go

Have you searched for an updated bios?

Quote: Originally Posted by BigAkita Have you searched for an updated bios?

Does it have an AGP port? If so, then onboard video will automatically be disabled when you plug a card into the AGP slot.

(I know, you're using a PCI card, it's just information for you)

Definitely look for newer drivers for that video card (good luck) and also check your BIOS for an option that has to do with PCI video. (sorry, working on 6 hours sleep in the last 72 hours....brain starting to shut down... )

heh, it makes me want to slap the SOB who Nucked up his computer. I have done alot of house call and never had anything like this. i would like to say that you might want to strip it down and start over again. Try resetting the BIOS back to the defaults!!!!