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Subject: Re: <OT> Can you outthink Microsoft?

Author: Roy Eassa

Date: 10:36:50 10/09/02

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On October 09, 2002 at 12:36:48, Peter Skinner wrote:

>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.
>


By the way, steps 3-5 are the first thing Microsoft had me do (several times!)
to no avail.  :-(


>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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