Video card problem

Several months ago I had my motherboard replaced. The computer has worked
fine since I got it back, but I just discovered a problem when I tried to
play a DVD movie: no picture, regardless of what program I use. Sometimes it
advises me to use a lower setting, but I've tried that and it doesn't work.

In fiddling around with this I noticed for the first time that my computer
no longer reports exactly what monitor I use (a Dell CRT 17") or the AGP
video card, an nVidia RIVA TNT Model 64 -- an older card, but except for
this new problem it meets all my needs.

I went to the nVidia site, downloaded the appropriate driver to my computer
and ran the set-up. But it made no difference to anything.

I went to Device Manager, but it doesn't even list anything for a Display,
either a monitor (it use to) or the video card. I went to Display
Properties, but it doesn't list anything either. Under Properties, it says
it uses the default hardware setting. Under another tab it says to load
system driver; when I tried "automatic," I got nothing at all.

As I said, the monitor and card appear to be working fine otherwise; I have
it set at 1024 by 768 pixels.

Any suggestions on what do next?

Thanks in advance.

On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 14:02:56 GMT, "Bruce"
wrote:

Several months ago I had my motherboard replaced. The computer has worked
fine since I got it back, but I just discovered a problem when I tried to
play a DVD movie: no picture, regardless of what program I use. Sometimes it
advises me to use a lower setting, but I've tried that and it doesn't work.

In fiddling around with this I noticed for the first time that my computer
no longer reports exactly what monitor I use (a Dell CRT 17") or the AGP
video card, an nVidia RIVA TNT Model 64 -- an older card, but except for
this new problem it meets all my needs.

Does it show the monitor as Plug-n-play? If so, that's fine, so
long as you have the desired refresh rates and if you don't need
color-matching for image editing to the output device. In other
words, for the purpose of this issue, forget about the monitor,
it isn't related.

Was motherboard replaced with same exact (or very similar)
motherboard or something different?

Was operating system reinstalled fresh or a clean install or?
Presumably this is same video card you had before(?) so did you
try the driver you were previously using?


I went to the nVidia site, downloaded the appropriate driver to my computer
and ran the set-up. But it made no difference to anything.

Did it go though the process of installing it, that is, you saw
the nVidia setup splash screens and all that, or did it just copy
the files somewhere, like C:\nvidia folder? Run the setup.exe
from the folder and see if that does the trick.

Are you confident in the abilities of the motherboard installer?
That is, they'd have the correct bios settings, chipset/AGP
driver installed? I have to ask since the motherboard
installation should've been followed by the video card driver
installation already, else why wouldn't it be installed? Either
it was never installed, you (or somebody else) uninstalled it, or
there's more to the history of the system than mentioned.

Check Add/Remove Programs, and if there's any driver installed,
uninstall it, THEN run the setup.exe from the nvidia folder (or
wherever it is).

I went to Device Manager, but it doesn't even list anything for a Display,
either a monitor (it use to) or the video card. I went to Display
Properties, but it doesn't list anything either. Under Properties, it says
it uses the default hardware setting. Under another tab it says to load
system driver; when I tried "automatic," I got nothing at all.

As I said, the monitor and card appear to be working fine otherwise; I have
it set at 1024 by 768 pixels.

Any suggestions on what do next?

I suspect your DVD player is trying to use a hardware overlay to
display the picture. Possibly it has a setting to use software
rendering instead, but that is only a temporary, poor fix
compared to getting the driver installed & working.

Generally it's good to provide more secifics of the system in an
opening post, for example, the motherboard make/model/chipset
(maybe even a link to it on manufacturer's website) and which
operating system you're running, the software showing the issue,
any other specifics that make your system deviate from (any other
system doing anything else).

The motherboard was quite different. I started off with an Iwill XP333; I
now have an ECS Elitegroup KT600-A. I have the same memory in both, 512 megs
of PC2700.

The shop must have used a repair install, because I did not have to
reinstall any other software. In fact, I was surprised at how easily the
change seemed to be made in motherboards. No changes in my hard drive
(Seagate 60 mb) or peripherals, including the video card. Oh, I'm using
Windows XP Home Edition.

Nothing is shown as plug-and-play, including the monitor. I can't even find
a place to tell me what driver is working for my video card or monitor. And,
no, nothing shows up in Windows add-or-remove.

I did try running the setup.exe in the folder, but it made no difference.

And thanks, "kony," for taking the time on this.



"kony" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 14:02:56 GMT, "Bruce"
wrote:

Several months ago I had my motherboard replaced. The computer has worked
fine since I got it back, but I just discovered a problem when I tried to
play a DVD movie: no picture, regardless of what program I use. Sometimes
it
advises me to use a lower setting, but I've tried that and it doesn't
work.

In fiddling around with this I noticed for the first time that my
computer
no longer reports exactly what monitor I use (a Dell CRT 17") or the AGP
video card, an nVidia RIVA TNT Model 64 -- an older card, but except for
this new problem it meets all my needs.

Does it show the monitor as Plug-n-play? If so, that's fine, so
long as you have the desired refresh rates and if you don't need
color-matching for image editing to the output device. In other
words, for the purpose of this issue, forget about the monitor,
it isn't related.

Was motherboard replaced with same exact (or very similar)
motherboard or something different?

Was operating system reinstalled fresh or a clean install or?
Presumably this is same video card you had before(?) so did you
try the driver you were previously using?


I went to the nVidia site, downloaded the appropriate driver to my
computer
and ran the set-up. But it made no difference to anything.

Did it go though the process of installing it, that is, you saw
the nVidia setup splash screens and all that, or did it just copy
the files somewhere, like C:\nvidia folder? Run the setup.exe
from the folder and see if that does the trick.

Are you confident in the abilities of the motherboard installer?
That is, they'd have the correct bios settings, chipset/AGP
driver installed? I have to ask since the motherboard
installation should've been followed by the video card driver
installation already, else why wouldn't it be installed? Either
it was never installed, you (or somebody else) uninstalled it, or
there's more to the history of the system than mentioned.

Check Add/Remove Programs, and if there's any driver installed,
uninstall it, THEN run the setup.exe from the nvidia folder (or
wherever it is).

I went to Device Manager, but it doesn't even list anything for a
Display,
either a monitor (it use to) or the video card. I went to Display
Properties, but it doesn't list anything either. Under Properties, it
says
it uses the default hardware setting. Under another tab it says to load
system driver; when I tried "automatic," I got nothing at all.

As I said, the monitor and card appear to be working fine otherwise; I
have
it set at 1024 by 768 pixels.

Any suggestions on what do next?

I suspect your DVD player is trying to use a hardware overlay to
display the picture. Possibly it has a setting to use software
rendering instead, but that is only a temporary, poor fix
compared to getting the driver installed & working.

Generally it's good to provide more secifics of the system in an
opening post, for example, the motherboard make/model/chipset
(maybe even a link to it on manufacturer's website) and which
operating system you're running, the software showing the issue,
any other specifics that make your system deviate from (any other
system doing anything else).

On Mon, 05 Jul 2004 01:48:55 GMT, "Bruce"
wrote:

The motherboard was quite different. I started off with an Iwill XP333; I
now have an ECS Elitegroup KT600-A. I have the same memory in both, 512 megs
of PC2700.

The shop must have used a repair install, because I did not have to
reinstall any other software. In fact, I was surprised at how easily the
change seemed to be made in motherboards. No changes in my hard drive
(Seagate 60 mb) or peripherals, including the video card. Oh, I'm using
Windows XP Home Edition.

Nothing is shown as plug-and-play, including the monitor. I can't even find
a place to tell me what driver is working for my video card or monitor. And,
no, nothing shows up in Windows add-or-remove.

I did try running the setup.exe in the folder, but it made no difference.

And thanks, "kony," for taking the time on this.

What happened when you ran the setup.exe?

Have you contacted the shop to find out what they did?
Presumably they didn't "finish" their job, should fix this.

Another thing to check is whether they installed the Via 4in1
driver. You could go ahead and install that, even if they
already installed one you can install a newer version overtop of
it... it is easy to find with Google search for "via 4in1".