No video output from video card or onboard graphics before windows login screen

jhudson85

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Sep 4, 2016
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Hi,

I'm not getting any video output from my computer to my monitor before it boots to the windows login screen (at which point I'm guessing the video drivers have loaded). This means that I can't see any bios options or any installation media. Therefore I recently had to install Windows 10 onto the computer by plugging it into my laptop so I could see the options and then transfer it to my desktop (I know not the best solution but I was struggling for other options).

My setup is slightly old now, my motherboard is a Gigabyte z68xp-ud3p rev1.0 which has one HDMI port (which I am currently using to get to the windows login page). I also have a gtx1070 graphics card which is currently unplugged. The mobo is running with a legacy BIOS, however I'm trying to update it to UEFI currently (which is hard not being able to access BIOS) to see if that has any impact.

The monitor I'm using is a Dell UHD monitor if that matters (I so far have presumed that it shouldn't).

Any ideas on how to solve this?
 
Another option is to suspect that the CMOS settings have become corrupted and video output is borked until Windows takes over. For this, I would suggest a CMOS reset.

1) Unplug machine.
2) Remove CMOS battery from motherboard (looks like a watch battery).
3) Press and hold power button for 30 seconds to be sure all residual power has been used up and there's none left. This will ensure it forgets any bad settings.
4) Put the battery back in, plug the system back in, and turn it on.

After this, it will have forgotten the date and time as well as any BIOS settings you had changed, including any changes that may have caused this unusual behavior.
 

jhudson85

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Sep 4, 2016
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Thanks, I've tried removing the CMOS battery just now but it doesn't look like it has changed. I have access to bios options by using gigabytes touch bios software and it doesn't look like one of the settings which I changed has changed back so I'm not sure if it has reset correctly. The setting I tried changing was disabling quick boot to check whether that would do anything.

The only onboard video output that I have is the HDMI port. On the graphics card there are other outputs though such as DVI, HDMI and display port, but I don't those will work.
 

jhudson85

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Sep 4, 2016
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It's strange because I have definitely been able to see the boot up in the past. I can't remember when I stopped being able to see the bootup. However when I was using an old video card and was running the system a long time ago I would always be able to access the BIOS options. I remember changing the default Gigabyte POST screen background image somehow. That was a long time ago though and the POST process still worked fine and gave a video output when I changed the background.