Inspiron 2500 No display After Restart

Hi I have a inspiron 2500 with a p3 897 mhz 256 ram. It has windows xp sp1 installed.

I can see the screen in bios mode, and can see it when I first turn on my computer, and install windows. It will go through the entire install, and let me see the windows screen. (fully functional). Then I will restart it, and I can no longer see the screen after windows boots up again. The bios screen will still show, and so will the little splash screen that tells you windows is booting up, but then I will get no screen right when windows is booted up. The backlight comes on, and it will makes sounds, so I know windows is working but I can't see it, I have tried plugging in an external monitor but that will not work either. The only way I can get windows to come up on the screen is if I hit F8 and boot it in vga mode. Then I can see the screen. I have also tried to download the new driver from the dell website, it will install, but It still will not fix my problem. Help, I have tried installing windows xp home with several install disks on several occasions. This is baffling.