Monitor blinks on & off with DOS program

Question

I'm trying to run an old DOS program (American Heritage Dictionary) on a Dell computer running Windows XP with a 1905FP flat panel monitor.  When I run it full screen (necessary to get the pronunciation font and to use the mouse) it will display correctly for anywhere from a fraction of a second to several seconds, at which point the monitor will go blank for the same range of time, then come back on, and continue the on/off behavior indefinitely.  The program runs fine - during glimpses when it's showing I can see that it's working.  I have tried changing monitor resolution and every combination of pif file choices I can think of, all to no avail.  The program ran fine on a previous computer (with CRT monitor), also running Windows XP.  Any ideas?

coffent · Answer

Addition:  I've since discovered that I get exactly the same behavior when I press F2 to interrupt the boot sequence when rebooting.  The DOS-like screen for modifying boot parameters also blinks on and off.

speedstep · Answer

There is a blink attribute to the video ram in dos It means that all the blink bits in that portion of ram are on. Try setting the program to compatability mode and see if that fixes the problem.

coffent · Answer

SpeedStep -   Thanks for the suggestion.  However, I've already tried compatibility mode without success.  Also, I don't think that's possible with the bios setup screen which exhibits the same behavior.  Finally, the blinking is not regular, as I'd think would be the case with any parameter set to 'blink' - the 'on' time is anywhere from a fraction of a second to several seconds, with duty cycles ranging from perhaps 10% to 60%.

speedstep · Answer

If the bios setup screen blinks its a hardware issue not a DOS issue.

THE HUSTLER · Answer

I have the same problem on 2 Dell GX280 P.C's.   The flashing occurs in Bios setup, Boot sequence setup or normal boot.   Sounds like a config/driver problem, am continuing to investigate.

Rijko · Answer

hi,

these problems all seem to occur in the lowest resolution.

I had a videocard once that would not show 640x480, all higher resolutions worked fine...

Flashing the video bios solved it ! Have you run Dell Diagnostics ? Maybe it can find a problem in the videocard.

Message Edited by Rijko on 05-07-2005 01:10 AM

THE HUSTLER · Answer

The GX280 can be shipped with two different video cards.  We solved our problem by changing drivers on some P.C's

skaluf · Answer

We have an entire lab of 25 GX280's, ATI Radeon X300 card, Dell 1905 FP connected with the DVI cable.  11 of these either flash or don't display anything while in the BIOS screen or while in DOS.  Not until the XP login box comes up does the monitor hold its signal.  We can't call ATI on this since the cards are OEM'ed.  We've already have had a replacement card sent out for one (didn't work) and a motherboard's on its way to see if that works.  We have another 80 of these we haven't placed yet, so this is a large problem.  Any ideas?

skaluf · Answer

Several of the machines got fixed with the new BIOS flash (A05), however we still have 11 left.  Whatever it is, it appears to be hardware related, not software.

skaluf · Answer

Looks like there's an updated video bios (VBIOS) released 6/15/05. It's in the file downloads for GX270 and 280 machines   ATI 128MB PCI-Express x16 (Dual VGA or DVI) Radeon X300   Seems to have solved our problem after two new motherboards and two new video cards (second one must have had the new VBIOS).

Monitors

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