As far as I can tell, it's a 9600SE (http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9600/radeon9600pro/compare.html).

In the future, please post just the relevant parts of output text like this. Not only is...

I assume you are talking about an LC display. If so, the problem is never RAM. Instead, it is usually a bad contact between the driver circuitry and the display panel itself. This happens because...

"No beep" almost 100% indicates a hardware problem with the computer. The mionitor is going to sleep because it's not gettting a signal. How old is the computer? Do the fans spin up? The hard...

The degaussing circuit has a bad solder connection, most likely. There are devices (known as thermistors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermistor)) in the degauss circuit that work thermally--when...

Newer video cards have this function as part of the drivers. You can access this function by going to the Display menu. This can be done by either accessing the desktop right-click menu...

Laptop LCD assemblies are, usually and unfortunately, sealed units. They are built in layers, and the lamp is the back layer. When the unit was manufactured, likely on an automated line, a jig was...

Try some of the other numbers you find on the unit. Like HP, IBM uses "part" numbers and "model" numbers that have no relation one to another. IBM is very good about service manuals these days. ...

It might be a ribbon-cable problem. The cable might be loose, but it's not likely. An LCD screen is divided into two parts, upper and lower--if something is affecting only one half, the problem could...

It looks like you have damaged your video card, and the green output has been pulled loose inside. If you apply enough force to a video connector (easy to do with a bulky, stiff monitor cable), you...

I always start with the CRT (picture tube) and work back. In my opinion, the best CRT on earth bar none is the Mitsubishi Diamondtron. This is because Mitsubishi licensed the Trinitron tube from...

It's not unusual for a ribbon connector on a mass-produced piece of gear to not be fully latched, or for the ribbon to be not fully poked home when it was latched, or for the ribbon not to be...

Without a doubt, you have a bad monitor. If it's less than a year old, it may still be under warranty.

Technical details (optional):

Modern cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors use about 30,000V...

The monitor itself is most likely at fault. What refresh rates are we talking about? What are you using to switch them? I doubt that the BIOS has anything to do with the problem, especially if it...

That can be one of several problems, including a bad picture tube, but it's most likely a bad solder connection. Most of the AST monitors were made by Acer, which was known for that problem with...

I don't think your video problem is driver-related -- there are only a limited number of resolutions which are supported by the S-video output. Try 640 x 480 first, then 800 x 600, both at 60 Hz...

It may simply be that the default resolution that Windows is currently set to is not supported by either monitor you tried. Before you go mucking about with the drivers, go into Safe mode, open the...

What does it look like when it's booting? Can you boot to DOS from a floppy? If so, does the text look OK then?

Antec and Sparkle are two well-known ones -- there are many others.

Know your vendor is another watchword. There are a lot of decent (and not-so-decent) lesser-known brands and a good vendor...

Yeah, it's a decent Sony monitor -- but realize that I have seen these at trade shows, working, for about $25...

That having been said. how much do you know about electronics? Can you solder? ...

I'm glad the link helped -- and thanks for reporting back!

Windex is fine for the cleaner, but in order to avoid scratches, use a clean cloth (like an old cotton t-shirt or cheesecloth) rather than a paper towel -- paper is abrasive. If the screen is...

Which version of Windows are you running? Under Win 9x, it is somtimes necessary to run a utility like Detonator Destroyer to clear out the remnants of the earlier versions of the nVidia drivers.
...

It's not likely that you can fix it yourself. The problem is probably electronic, rather than mechanical.

It's the monitor. Edge-focus is notoriously tricky on flat-screen picture tubes. I have not found anything on adjusting the focus for this model. A quick check on the web indicates that you are...

Have you tried an external monitor? Does the unit boot normally otherwise?

It's basically "burst mode" for the AGP bus.

It depends on the video card, the BIOS, and the video card driver. There are tweakers for both nVidia and ATI that will do this if it's supported. Guru3D (http://download.guru3d.com) is a good...

I have seen them on eBay. They may come with instructions; ask to be sure. You can also Google on the model number and the word "inverter" like this...

It's probably a faulty inverter (thermal shutdown). If it was a bad FL tube, it would probably flicker or restart instead.

It looks good-to-go to me. The top-end speed on this board is AGP-4x, so it's backwards-compatible.

PNY is decent. Another safe bet is a card made by a major motherboard manufacturer like Abit, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Albatron, etc.

For more-detailed specs, comparisons, and ideas there are a...

As far as DirectX or Open GL go, those are software-based. Unless your laptop is well over 6 years old, it will support both at some level.

I'm going to quote myself here, from a couple of...

It sounds like a hardware problem, like a thermally-intermittent driver integrated circuit that clears up when it gets warm. It may well be within economical repair.

Bump that up to about $150 and you will future-proof your video for quite a bit longer. Think about it; an additional ~$50 investment will roughly double your overall video performance. There are...

the 845 chipset series is older and obsolete (133 MHz front-side bus/DDR266). The 865 chipset series is newer and relatively current (up to 200 MHz front-side bus, quad-pumped "800 MHz"/DDR400). ...

No, it is the connector between the driver electronics and the LCD glass itself, inside the display assembly. It's a sandwich, with the LCD substrate (glass with transistors and conductors) as one...

That's a tough one. When you open a command (text console) window full-screen, what happens? I would lean strongly toward a monitor problem, but it could be either the LCD or the vid card. ...

That's a Sony-made monitor. Likely the memory chip is blown out, or a power supply problem can cause this (missing re-write voltage). Time for a replacement. These days, a used monitor is usually...

The monitor is supposed to "remember" its settings from session to session; as long as your video card settings are the same, the monitor should keep the settings regardless of video card drivers. ...

Is it still under warranty? You probably have a bad inverter, the DC-to-AC circuit that drives the fluorescent-tube backlight. Less likely, but possible: the fluorescent-tube backlight iself is...