Problem with graphics card/Windows/drivers

[Sindwiller]

Soo, I googled like a mad man and asked in a few places (like ##windows @ Freenode, but guess what, there's hardly a living Windows support community -.-), all of that without any success, so I decided to ask in here, too. I came back from a camp last friday, finding my computer, or rather my Windows installation, in an unusable state: Windows starts up without problems, but once it should display the login screen (respectively the desktop), I only get a black screen and no response whatsoever. However, I can run Windows in VGA mode (F8) without a hassle (except for it being really slow), or even uninstall the NVIDIA drivers. In the beginning, I tried to repair my Windows installation with my installation CD, which didn't solve the issues. Then installed Windows again. After using the NVIDIA drivers again, I had the same problems. Tried the NGO Optimized NVIDIA Drivers which somebody on a forum, stating that he had the same issues as me, gave the link to. I've checked inside my machine whether the graphics card is still inside the slot, whether the additional cable is still okay, whether my RAM is correctly in the slot, etc. - Nothing.

I don't think it's my graphics card though, since everything works fine under Linux, even 3D-acceleration and what not.

The version of the drivers shouldn't be the problem either, since I started experiencing those problems after I came back from camp, I didn't do anything with my computer before that.

Any ideas?

[Sindwiller]

*bump*

Hello world from Linux...

Updated my drivers because a game produced some nasty artifacts due to some incompatibilities of the old drivers I was using. I basically had reinstalled Windows and then tried out a bunch of drivers again and again and again and again until I came to the conclusion that the only drivers which would work without problems are the first ones to support my graphics card. Said and done afterwards: Installed those, and it worked. Until I stumbled upon some artifacts which forced me to update.

Guess what now: I have the same problem. Again. So, anybody had something similar before? Anybody got any advice?

[Duff-e]

If you really reinstalled windows from scratch (formatting over the partition) and it still doesn't work I can't imagine it not being hardware related, even with linux working. It sounds like you worked through all the obvious stuff, maybe it would be worth downloading OEM tools for your hard drive and running a diagnostic.

If that doesn't work try running windows xp off of a USB stick to see what happens. If you can get into windows from there I'd run the longest diagnostic on every part you can. I'd say do this from linux but I'm not sure how readily available they are.

It obviously SOUNDS like graphics driver issue...but like I said if you reformatted, reinstalled and are still having the same problem something must be really fucked up. If you DIDN'T reformat and don't want to because of data, etc, you should create a new partition from in linux or windows (vga) and then install windows from scratch on that.

If it turns out you can get into windows with no issues with one of these methods you can pretty easily recover all your data from the fucked up windows partition and then just format over it.

Also, assuming you don't have some crazy specific bios settings, it couldn't hurt to reset everything to default.

[Jetsetlemming]

What's your graphics card? Did this just start randomly one day or did it happen after an event such as upgrading your drivers? Did you leave your computer on while you were at camp? Was there anyone else around who could've been using your computer? Is it on a surge protector?

Basic stuff I have heard similar complaints in the past about NVidia graphics drivers causing a ton of problems a couple generations ago, a friend of mine couldn't get his Geforce 7 to work at all without some ooooold old legacy drivers, anything remotely modern at the time wouldn't work.

[Sindwiller]

What's your graphics card? ... I have heard similar complaints in the past about NVidia graphics drivers causing a ton of problems a couple generations ago, a friend of mine couldn't get his Geforce 7 to work at all without some ooooold old legacy drivers, anything remotely modern at the time wouldn't work.

Geforce 7950GX2. Explains apparently a lot. Will do some diagnostic checks just in case...

[Jetsetlemming]

On the plus side, a much better replacement won't run you for very much at all these days.

[Sindwiller]

If I don't find any other explanation for this, buying a new graphics card might be the best long term solution after all, also considering that I've been using this graphics card for 2 years now.

EDIT: Rolled back my drivers, working fine now obviously. Windows has so good support I have to admit...

Can anybody recommend me a good Nvidia card people use these days? Not necessarily top high end, but still something with enough power for newer games and some retarded high poly modelling

[Jetsetlemming]

Sure you don't want to try an ATI after what you just had to deal with?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150394

Similarly priced Nvidia:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814143140

Here's a performance test that includes both, they're typically within a couple FPS of each other on equal settings.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16681/6

[Sindwiller]

Sure you don't want to try an ATI after what you just had to deal with?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150394

I don't buy ATI/AMD on principle due to their shitty Linux drivers (despite the open specifications now!) and their weird implementations nobody can cope with. If there's a workaround in some for some graphical bug, it's because of ATI

[Sentura]

you could also just stop running linux...