Need help or new video card

[Tiny]

Please help. I'm somewhat of a Hardware Newbie, so be gentle.

I got a new 19" lcd for Christmas. It is a Samsung SyncMaster 930B. My Video Card is a Radeon 9800XT and I've had it for about 6 months. I've never used the DVI slot because I used to have a plain 17" CRT. Anyway, if I plug in the DVI only, I get black screen and never get a picture (even pushing the button on the monitor to toggle between the analog feed and digital feed). When I use the Analog cable, everything is fine, I dl'd the new video card driver and disk for the monitor and am fairly happy with the performance increase by the size jump and lcd, but I would like to be "WOWWED" by the digital. I play DOD:S, and BF2, and am trying to get better fps.

Shouldn't my Card be piping out a signal on the DVI port? Have I done something wrong? If my card's digital doesn't work, I'll get a new video card, but if that is the case, I would appreciate some help picking one. Need AGP, DDR, I have 1.5G RAM, P4 3.2Ghz.

Thanks in advance, and I appreciate your website and format for helping people find/learn videocards.

[Mike]

It seems to me that the DVI port should be already enabled...but I'm thinking you may need to go through the process of enabling a secondary monitor to get it working. You may also need to poke around in the ATi driver to see if there's anything you need to tell it to do to make it realize you have something connected to the DVI port...

First thing I would try is right-click on your desktop and hit "Properties", go to the "Settings" tab and see if there is a disabled monitor that you can enable.

Also, have you restarted your computer with the DVI cable hooked up?

[Tiny]

Thanks Mike.

To respond to your suggestions...
It seems to me that the DVI port should be already enabled...but I'm thinking you may need to go through the process of enabling a secondary monitor to get it working.
I tried this, with my CRT in the Analog and my LCD on the digital. The LCD was still just blank screen.

You may also need to poke around in the ATi driver to see if there's anything you need to tell it to do to make it realize you have something connected to the DVI port...
I could not find anything that seemed to "force" DVI.

First thing I would try is right-click on your desktop and hit "Properties", go to the "Settings" tab and see if there is a disabled monitor that you can enable.
I've gone through, disabled this monitor completely, used the standard PnP, had the computer running without any monitor selected, and used this monitor with both options of it (ex. SyncMaster 930B(Analog) and SyncMaster 930B(Digital)).

Also, have you restarted your computer with the DVI cable hooked up?
Yes, I simply get the black screen at start up (meaning my Bios logo nor posts show and I must hard re-boot).

Assuming my Video Card's DVI is not working properly, do I have the best card for AGP, DDR ??? Do you think a new Card is the next step? Thanks again!!

[Mike]

Well I hate to recommend buying a new card...but if you had another card with a DVI port that you could swap in to see if it's the card or the monitor...or the dvi cable...that would be preferable...

I assume you're using the DVI cable that came with your LCD? What kind of LCD is it?

[Tiny]

Samsung SyncMaster 930B

[Jason]

It really sounds like you have the option / port disabled within the settings somewhere. Where, however, I don't know. I'd have to take a look at it to be honest but maybe it'd be worth your while to find someone with another dvi source. Find a known good DVI cable and try that. Your cable box, if you have high definition, may actually have a DVI port on it - mine does. If that doesn't work, it might be worth finding another card and trying that one. My card works by default on both analog and DVI.

I have the BFG Geforce 6600GTOC (PCI-E).

-Jason