Display going black when WinXP starts.

Hello all, been a long time. I have a problem. Got a new game so I decided to update my video drivers. I installed the new drivers and now when windows starts the display goes black. The display is ok to this point, I can see everything when it boots. I have to go to safe mode
and uninstall driver to be able to get back to normal windows.
The computer is working fine, it's just the monitor that is blacked out once windows starts. I can put my windows password in with the display blank and I can tell by the hard drive light that windows is loading correctly. I only have one LCD monitor hooked up so not a problem that way. This problem was caused when I used "Refresh Force" when uninstalling my video drivers, so I believe I have a resolution and/or refresh setting that my monitor does not support, but I don't know how to change it back. I'm running it right now without video drivers and the monitor settings just show "default monitor" with no refresh settings available.
My computer specs are,
AMD San Diego 3700 CPU
Asus A8N-SLI deluxe motherboard
2 GeForce 7600 SLI video cards
Samsung 931BW monitor
600 watt OCZ power supply
1 GB ram
I'm not sure how much more information you require to help me with my problem. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Where did you find the drivers?

 

Hi, thanks for your reply. The drivers are from the Nvidia website. It doesn't matter which version I use either, all the same result. As I said in my original post, I have inadvertently changed my screen resolution or refresh rate that my monitor will not work with and cannot find a way to change it back.

 

I don't think(!?) it would be defaulting to the wrong resolution, but you could be right. When you install a new set of drivers try uninstalling any listing under the Monitor heading in Device Manager.

Whenever I find tough graphics driver problems, I uninstall the old ones in Safe Mode, by going to Add or Remove Programs and running the uninstaller there, then checking in Device Manager that the graphics adapter listing is gone. Be careful that you don't uninstall the nVidia (nForce) chipset drivers, but I recommend that you update those as well, if you are going to update the graphics drivers.

After you uninstall the drivers and reboot you can go to the Startup Options (F8) and select VGA Mode. That will allow you to do the installation in normal mode without having to go through the Add New Hardware wizard.

My recommendation is to get the drivers from the adapter manufacturer's website. If I find any big problems I go back to the version that came with the adapter until I can find a suitable updated version (and if the original version work fine, I don't bother updating them).

Your problem might not be the drivers, but the nVidia "Control Panel" software that goes with them.

Matt

 

glarkin,

If you followed Matt's advice and booted into safe mode, you may have stumbled on a way to fix this. If not, boot into safe mode and change your monitor's refresh rate back to 60Hz and set your screen to something safe like 1024x768. You should then be able to boot normally and make further adjustments.

If you do want to change video drivers, follow Matt's advice above.



edit: I am running a similar setup with two OC'ed XFX 7600's on the premium version of that motherboard with an FX57 and a Samsung Syncmaster 204t.

 

Thanks for the replies. I've tried everything. There was no monitor refresh setting in safe mode, just lists a default monitor with no settings available. I don't know what caused this other than using "Refresh Force" when I uninstalled the drivers. I've spent countless hours trying to correct this problem, finally reformatted and everything is good again. Thanks again for you help.

 

Ouch! Should anything like this happen in the future, plug a decent CRT monitor in and you should be able to see your way through to change the settings. I used to do XP set-ups using a monitor set at 1600x1200 at 85Hz and a couple of times forgot to change them back before they were sent on their way - needless to say, you know the rest of the story.

 

Hooked up a CRT monitor, and no difference.

 

No difference? I thought you'd resolved the issue with a reformat?

Either way, it's been my experience to have additional monitors available for all adaptors for testing purposes. It is possible that your BIOS primary adaptor is not the same as your OS primary adaptor and that would cause issues similar to what you described.

 

Yeah wildfire - I'm confused too.

 

I didn't mean to confuse you guys, lol. I did reformat and it did solve my problem.
I had hooked up the CRT monitor while I was having the issue and it still was black like by LCD monitor. I still think it was a refresh rate issue caused by using "Refresh Force" I inadvertently set a refresh rate that no monitor could operate on and could not find a way to change it back. Thanks again for your help.

 

I'm in complete agreement with your assessment. I guess one other approach would have been to change the video back to a more humble VGA mode while in Safe Mode and then reboot normally and change the adapter back to your current video card. Oh well ............ just sorry that you had to reformat to resolve this issue.