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Problem description: My desktop worked fine until a power flicker caused a hard shut-down two days ago. Now when my computer boots, after the windows splash screen, the video turns off like the computer is going into hibernation. It's the instant the desktop would appear, the monitor flickers off and no video. I can start the computer in safe mode and graphics work fine. I can uninstall the video driver, restart under normal unsafe windows, and it will "find" the video card and install drivers. After that driver install if I don't restart, it works fine in unsafe windows with what appear to be great graphics. I'm on the computer right now with great video, but games say no video card and it wants to restart. But if I restart, video cuts out on windows startup unless I do the uninstall/restart work-around. Regarding the power flicker if it matters: computer and monitor are on a surge protector, no storm was in the area, and no troubles after other infrequent power flickers. Attempted fixes: I un/reinstalled the video drivers, un/reinstalled the card, tried different drivers, etc. No change whatsoever. I ran scandisk (or the Vista equivalent, the memory scan tool), both quick and long version, and nothing to report. I ran the Startup Recovery tool from the Vista disk, and it found no problems at all with the Windows startup saying it should start fine. Monitor and cable are fine (swapped out and same issue). Recent changes: No changes. Prior to the power flicker I had no computer issues. Nothing is overclocked or taxed, no buggy software, just a vanilla gaming computer. -- Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium service pack 2, 64-bit System specs: Self-built. Intel MB, I don't know the specs but it's like the standard picks of several years ago. The key part is the video card: NVidia 8800 GT. The MB does have on-board video with a SVGA output, but I'm only using the DVI cable out from the video card. Location: US I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes I'm guessing the response will be "dead video card", which sucks. I don't know how to test to see if my current video output is being performed by on-board or the video card itself. There's nothing visible about the card that looks bad or non-working. It's maddening to have everything look fine with the uninstall/reboot trick, and I can get by right now just without reboot, but the video cuts out every time on a normal non-tricked startup.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 02:01 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 03:27 |
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Uninstall the video drivers in safe mode, boot into normal mode, run Driver Fusion (free version) to remove the remnants, reboot again, then install the latest beta drivers from the nVidia website.
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| # ? Mar 22, 2013 04:33 |
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