Oh, the onboard ports *work*. The BIOS boot menu (a nice decent res *color*) pic shows up on the monitors.

And Windows Safe mode usually works ok.

so, as other online help suggests, it's a driver issue. I just can't figure out how to *fix* it.

I'm about to backup the drive and reinstall windows on it. Then go thru the many, many updates issue.

btw, do you know how to get windows to display the drivers it's loading during startup (like it does when booting into safe mode)? I used to know but can't find it any more