When I first built my system in 2005, the TV out worked fine during boot. The bootsplash would show, and everything worked.

About a year a go or so, I stopped getting anything out during the boot. The TV would remain blank until the front end loaded. I used to see my motherboard's splashscreen, and then all the messages but now I just get a blank screen.

This wasn't a big deal until I went to upgrade to R5.5 this weekend, and couldn't see the prompts for the install. I had to connect a monitor to view it.

The video card is a LA-FX20-H GeForce FX 5200, and I am using a SVideo to Composite adapter that came with it.

Hi Bodah,

I also have an Nvidia chipset graphics card using sVideo out and I think from memory that it is not recommended to use the bootsplash with Nvidia cards. If you press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to bring up a command window it will probably be difficult to read (Ctrl-Alt-F7 goes back to the graphical frontend btw). So firstly I'd recommend disabling the bootsplash: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... BootSplash
Also have you got the xorg.conf configured correctly? It should be using svideo out, take a look under /etc/X11/ there should be a default one called nvidia_tv_out_xorg.conf or something similar. Try renaming it as xorg.conf after backing up your old one (as root) - BUT backup files first as it is hard to recover a pc if the monitor does not work (you might want to check SSH is enabled just in case):

Then restart your computer and see if this helps.
Loads of info here:
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... Transition

_________________
Running Knoppmyth R5.5 on a Compaq EVO D510 (sff) w/ P4 1.8GHz, 1GB RAM, 330GB 7200rpm Maxtor IDE HDD, XFX Nvidia GeForce 6200 (AGP low profile, p/n: PV-T44A-WANG) and Huappauge NOVA-T 500 DVB-T dual tuner PCI card.

Unfortunatly, I am beginning to think that it is a hardware issue.

I know I have xorg configured correctly, in fact, nothing shows until xorg loads. Once it does, there is no problems.

Even with no hard drive or OS, I used to get at least get the motherboard's splash screen, and BIOS messages. I don't even get that, just a blank screen.

Does anyone know if there is a firmware update to the card that may fix the problem?

I have an old Nvidia AGP card and it even displays the BIOS
messages on the TV.

If you have a monitor cable plugged in 100% of the time, try
unplugging it (leaving only the TV for a display), power off,
wait 5 minutes, power on, and see if your boot up shows up
on the TV. It may automatically switch to using TV 100% of
the time.

On the other hand, the card may "remember" how it is
configured and you may need to run nvidia-settings or
"Nvidia TV-Out" by right clicking on the desktop and selecting
them from Apps -> Tools ->

Make sure that you are running a video resolution (640x480
or 800x600) that your TV can display and using 60hz for
the refresh rate. It might be able to display on both the
monitor and TV at the same time if you do.

Cliff

I hardly every have a monitor connected. The only time that a monitor is connected is when I wanted to upgrade to 5.5. Prior to that, all upgrades and installs have been done with just the TV.

It has been this way for a while, maybe a year, I just didn't care because the TV eventually came up.