Major Comp Problem - Can't Install Nvidia Drivers

I have a 6600gt. I turned my computer on yesterday morning, and the screen resolution was set to 640x480 with 4 bit colour, and it would not let me change it in display options. It also seemed that the nvidia drivers had disappeared, I had no icon in the system tray.

I checked program files and all the drivers which I expected to be in Program Files/Nvidia were all just in Program Files, in no real folder structure.

So I installed the drivers again, rebooted, managed to get normal res/colour, but the nvidia icon was still not in the system tray, and it seemed there was no trace of the drivers on my system. When I rebooted, I got straight back to 640x480 with 4 bit colour.

So I tried using driver cleaner, and reinstalled the drivers, and got exactly the same situation as above. As soon as I reboot with nvidia drivers installed, I get 4 bit colour.

So next I tried going into device manager, and uninstalling display drivers from there. This was kind of stupid, because when I rebooted, windows would not start and it just got caught in a restarting loop, even in safe mode.

So at this point I went and backed up what I could on downstairs PC, and then "repaired" my windows installation. Once I was back at desktop, I got the same old problem as soon as I tried to install nvidia drivers.

I am now at a loss at what to do, I cannot even start counterstrike, or im sure any other game. I am stuck 50:50 as to whether it is hardware problems or a software problem. Is a full reformat the only way?

Anybody come across any problem like this before? I would have thought that a repair install would fix anything majorly messed up, but thinking about it I suppose a lot could still be corrupted in the install. The thing which makes me think hardware, is that it was suddenly like it when I turned my computer on yesterday morning, but fine when I shut it down the night before.

Blurt some ideas at me people...I need some help, this is driving me crazy being sat at a computer which isnt working as well as it should.

Hi Davos,

Sounds like a hardware fault to me. Are you able to try the graphics card from you 2nd computer in this one? if so, you should should be able to rule out a hardware fault.


Mark

My little brothers machine follows a similar pattern (geforce4), i don't care enough to fix it for him but i will be watching this thread closely.

i dont have another computer with pci-e im afraid.

a few other sources seem to be indicating this is a software problem. I suppose a full reformat is the only way to find out.

It wont help.

Try an older version of driver.

What about the motherboard drivers? What chipset are you running and have you tried removing these drivers? In the good old AGP days you sometimes would get these sort of problems with VIA 4in1's for example...

Personally I would try stripping all the drivers out and starting from scratch and as above try older, more stable drivers...

try Detonator Destroyer or something similar to remove the drivers and all the crap they leave behind, that may help

He's used driver cleaner which is one of the best omho

Dave's buying a new HDD and gonna install a fresh winblow$ (when SCAN get him the HDD :lol:)

I'm sure he'll update then :)

reformatted, and still broke.

assuming it is the graphics card at the moment and trying to sort an rma with xfx (which is painful)

So do you have a VIA board, because my brothers board is VIA and i install the 4in1's first followed by the dets, in the end i've had to resort to using Windows default Geforce driver. Perhaps it's the AGP GART driver within the 4in1's that's causing the problem and not interfacing correctly with the nvidia driver... even if you aren't running a VIA based system, it could still be the case, i know not using the manufacturers GART would be silly but as an experiment you could see what happens.

No he hasn't got a VIA system :lol:

No the GARTs aren't interfering as he's tried that :)

Dave's awaiting an RMA on the card so we'll see how that goes :)

This is very similar to another Hexus members issue http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=65313 he was using an xfx 7800gtx.

I wonder whether it's an hardware issue on both cards, i.e naff component shared by both boards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iranu

This is very similar to another Hexus members issue http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=65313 he was using an xfx 7800gtx.

I wonder whether it's an hardware issue on both cards, i.e naff component shared by both boards.

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Thanks for you post iranu! Davos I am that 'other user'.

XFX Have not replied to my message to them and I am not ringing their tech support for 60p a minute, I am in work during their office hours (mon-friday) and the phones won't access 090 numbers.

Can these threads (if we are both willing) be combined into a single thread?

I am in work so not tried this yet - sounds like twaddle to me!

But here it is in all it's glory the Nvidia reply to my query re the fault/ problem. Waited two days for that, but I would have thought that the options should be there automatically (with drivers) as windows detects the cards capabilities without the drivers.



Thank you for contacting NVIDIA Customer Care

Follow the below mentioned steps to obtain the desired resolution.

1) Please right click on your desktop and select Properties.

2) Select settings on the Display Properties page.

3) Click advanced on the next page.

4) Select the tab with the name of the Graphics Card.

5) As soon as you select the tab with the Graphics Cards name, a window will pop-up on the left hand side. Select resolution and refresh rate from the pop-up window.

6) Click on Add button to customize the resolution.

7) Mention the desired resolution in the box provided.

8) Click OK and save the setting.

Best regards,
NVIDIA Customer Care

like i said, this is hardware, and if i dont have drivers install, then obviously that solution will not work. sent card off today so waiting on an rma, ill let ya knw results

just to clear this thread up, the problem was the motherboard, still not sure exactly what with the motherboard, but the mobo none the less :)