Author: Peter Skinner
Date: 09:36:48 10/09/02
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On October 09, 2002 at 09:27:43, Roy Eassa wrote: >Off topic, but I really need assistance: > >Microsoft tech support has been trying unsuccessfully for 3+ weeks to solve a >seemingly simple problem on my WinXP Pro system. I bet somebody here has >insight that Microsoft lacks. > >Simply put, every time I reboot I must install video drivers. > >It's an Athlon system with a GeForce2 MX400 card and 1 GB RAM. It worked fine >for nearly 1.5 years before the problem suddenly appeared. > >After each reboot, Device Manager shows a problem with the video card. There is >only a generic VGA driver with 60 Hz refresh. Loading any compatible driver >(Microsoft's, nVidia's, Asus's...) solves the problem until the next reboot, >when the same issue occurs. > >Microsoft can't figure it out. It's hard to formulate a useful search via >Google for this issue -- I've found cures for similar-sounding issues but they >don't work for this seemingly unique problem. > >Any ideas? > >Thanks in advance!! > > -Roy. This is a problem I had when I first installed Windows XP on my new Athlon system. The problem was the sharing of an irq. Windows XP for some reason kicks one device off the irq which IT deems less needed. So for instance if you have an ethernet card installed and it shares the same irq as the video card it will boot the video card thus you having to reinstall it several times. What I did was this: 1. I moved all the cards in my pci slots around, leaving the slot right next to my agp slot free. 2. Due to downloading so many drivers for my card I have to look in the "inf" folder and delete all the drivers related to the actual video card. The easiest way to do this is to boot to safe mode, go into the C:\Windows\inf folder and delete anything to dowith my current video card. You might have to "unhide" system files to see the folder. 3. Remove all video devices from the hardware manager, including monitors. 4. Reboot into normal Windows and let it "re-discover" your hardware. You will have to reboot. 5. Once you reboot it will look as if you are in safe mode again but that is a result of you deleteing any driver that would suit the card. Just download the latest driver from the Nvidia site. Install it, reboot. 6. Once Windows finishes loading, reboot again. You will see your problem is gone. That is the only way I could get rid of the problem. I didn't have an Nvidia card at the time.I had a 3DLabs WildCat 6110. It was a great card but due to lack of support with DirectX8 I wasn't able to cleanly use it in Windows XP. You would figure a video card with 208megs of ddrram powering it would have the kind of support that developers need. I went to the Quadro 900XGL that uses an Nvidia NV25 core. It doesn't have the massive amount of memory that the Wildcat did but I also have much fewer problems. If that doesn't work I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that might. Just email me. Peter
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