You can boot into 'Safe Mode' by pressing F8 immediately following POST, before windows starts loading, if you miss it you'll have to restart the PC and try again.

After pressing F8 you should have several boot options available and one of them should be to boot into 'VGA mode' or 'Safe Mode with VGA'.

Or, you could just use your PC to determine the type of graphics adapter you have, even though your graphics are currently undesirable. You can go to the manufacturers website for the make and model of your PC if it is proprietary such as an HP or Dell, or you can go to the manufacturers website of the system board in your PC if it is a custom PC. 

I've previously used a utility called Belarc to obtain easy and specific system information. This program should be a free download and is easily used. Just run it on your system and it will return very quick, specific, and detailed system information. I do however recommend that you install this program, use it, print the results for yourself, and then uninstall the program from your PC through the control panel. You can keep the program handy by keeping it in a folder in a location of your choice on the system for future use.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Good luck!


> Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 13:49:39 +0200
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [PCBUILD] Had to reload PC
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> I had a harddisk failure and had to restore my old Pentium III PC. I 
> searched for the old install disks I had (or thought I had) for the 
> onboard features of the PC. Unfortunately no luck, so at the moment I 
> have the PC up and running, but the screen is a looking like an old 
> Dutch painting, no smooth graphics at all. When I try to set the 
> resolution, I am only able to pick "16 colors". I therefore need the VGA 
> drivers for the motherboard.
> 
> The specs for the PC are:
> Motherboard: DFI CS65-EC Rev.A2
> Processor: Intel Pentium III 800Mhz
> RAM: 256Mb (I said it was an old PC)
> HDD: 80Gb Maxstor
> Video interface: AGP (This is an onboard interface)
> OS: Windows 2000 SP4
> Screen: 17" MAG
> 
> Anyone that can help? What about a Generic VGA driver? Any suggestions?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> At Neethling
> Cape Town
> 
> -- 
> 
> ___________________________________________________________
> QOTW: People are so worried about what they eat between
>       Christmas and the New Year, but they really should
>       be worried about what they eat between the New Year
>       and Christmas.
>       -- Author Unknown
> 
>             Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
>                     Digest mode - visit our web site:
>                    http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Chat. Store. Share. Do more with mail. 
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_hm_justgotbetter_explore_012009
            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
                    Digest mode - visit our web site:
                   http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml