I have this POS dell dimension 3100 desktop that has worked for a while now. About two years ago I bought a new video card for it, nividia 1800 or something like that (don't remember exactly). Anyways ever since I installed that my computer has been set up as having dual monitors, even though I don't. Its running windows XP home edition SP2.
I asked the store I bought the card from about it and they just had me set boundaries and sort of disable the ghost screen. It has given me problems in the past but I've managed to work fix or workaround them. Until now.
On startup the loading windows XP screen shows up, then disappears. Then the screen is black and I have no cursor or anything, but the monitor is turned on and working fine apparently. I can also use the keyboard to log on, I can tell because of the noises the computer makes.
This makes me think that something might have happened to the video card. Or I accidently changed some setting sometime ago and it just decided to work now. The one thing thing that does work is safe mode. That tells me that hardware failure is probably not likely. I was following instructions from a colleague of mine, and I am supposed to be able to change monitor settings once at the properties menu. Except the only options I can change are the resolution and colour settings.
I was planning on buying a new computer anyways but can't for a couple weeks. I'm hoping I can fix this by myself without having to take it into a shop and pay a stupid amount of money for something that could have a simple fix.
Thanks in advance
