I Killed My Computer with a Video Card

[J. Stephen McDonald]

My thanks to everyone who took the time to help me with this problem. I feel that I have moved up one notch on the ladder from being a computer newbie.

AllI had to do was physically remove the NVIDIA video card from the PCI slot and almost all the computer and monitor functions were restored. The scroll buttons wouldn't work, but by restoring the system to the time just before the installation for the card was done, that was fixed. The "NVIDIA Display Drivers" that I thought I'd removed, are still there on the Add/Remove Program screen. However, it is now the first in the lineup of 5 NVIDIA programs, when before, it was in the second position. There's obviously a complex relationship between the drivers that were previously installed, the hardware of the card and the program that was installed from the card's CD-ROM. I had the screen resolution raised to 1,024 X 768, instead of the basic 800 X 600, at the time the monitor went blank, so that might been a reason no basic picture was showing, after I did a removal on the display drivers.

The NVIDIA instructions that were sent by one of you, say to disable any download accelerators and anti-virus programs before installation. I believe Microsoft had sent an auto-update that included a download accelerator, so I will check on that before I try to re-install this card. I had Webroot's Spy-Sweeper running in minimized mode, so I'll turn it off completely, although I'm not sure that it would have affected the installation.

Although I've been shooting and editing video for almost 18 years, I got my first computer just 16 months ago. I had 7 years experience on the Internet previously, but that was limited to the use of my very slow WebTV, which actually has more capabilities than many people realize. The sort of difficulty and problem-solving I've just had, is how you learn to deal with these more complex things and again, I thank you all.

[Raza Ahmad]

well. progress.

at this point, i think there are the following things to consider:

1) your onboard video is overridden by something that the nvidia drivers do... so, your best bet may be to:

uninstall ALL nvidia drivers and software,
go through a reboot,
enter windows in ugly standard vga,
and then shutdown,
install the pci card
boot up but hit whatever key you are told to to get into bios setup
find the configuration that allows your pci to be your primary video card
save and exit
hook up a monitor to the pci output (this operation will go most smoothly if you hook up one monitor to each out, running dual monitors till the pci out is stable).
boot into windows. (again, in ugly standard vga).
install the nvidia drivers from scratch.
reboot and you should be set...

note that when changing resolutions in windows, windows holds a little pop up open for about 15 seconds to allow an automatic reversion to the previous resolution if the one you just chose doesnt work... use that to your advantage... if your screen blanks out after a resolution change, just wait for it to revert back... dont hit any keys...

as for the antivirus etc. etc. ---- they say that but i've never personally seen a download accelerator or antivirus or anything interfere at that level with video output.

i think finally the one thing that is important is your windows version... if your not using Windows 2000 or XP (preferrably professional)... its time to upgrade... once you are on one of those two platforms things will be a lot smoother for you...

glad we could help...

-raza

[Raza Ahmad]

I'm now regular crew...

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is most certainly teh r0x0r...

-raza