Blank screen on boot

[simon_r2d2]

I have a nice shiny new Dell Poweredge 1800 server, on which I want to install FC5 to run MySQL, PHP and other services.

Installation goes fine, and everything appears to be OK. That is (usually) until the first reboot following a successful installation. The server comes back up, you can see all the services starting (OK, smartd fails but I am using SATA drives in a raid5), but everything appears to be fine, until that is the point at which you would expect to see the login welcome screen. The screen goes blank, and the LCD display reports "No input" as if someone had just pulled out the VGA cable.

The weird thing is, if I reboot is 7 or 8 times, it may start fine one of those times - its not consistent. I have also slightly improved the boot success rating by using interactive startup and disabling LOCAL and FIRSTBOOT, although I am not sure why this helps.

The server has an ATI RADEON 7000-m graphics adapter in it, which FC5 appears to correctly identify. I have tried using the generic ATI drivers and setting it to a generic 800 x 600 LCD display with a refresh rate of 60hz - no effect.

Has anyone any ideas at all. In desperation, I tried installing SUSE 9 which seems to work fine, but the other kit I have all runs FC, so would rather keep things consistent if poss.

I am losing the will to live - any help gratefully received.

Simon

[erikimorton]

Wow, the same thing just happened to me with my new PE 1800. Have you made any progress on this issue?

[simon_r2d2]

No - other than reducing to running the standard VESA VGA drivers. This is far from ideal as it limits the screen to 640 x 480! but at least the box boots every time to a useable screen.

I have also installed SUSE 9 which has no such issues. Howerver, I would prefer to keep to FC5. The only thing I can think of is that there is some issue with the drivers for this integral card.... just hoping someone out there is having similar problems and has managed to solve them!