display suddenly gone wrong

[nostrebornitsuj]

Hello:

I'm running Windows 2000 with an Nvidia GeForce 440MX graphics card.
Yesterday, having done nothing unusual, I started up the PC and it told
me that it had miraculously "found new hardware" -- Nvidia Dualview. At
the same time I find that my display has gone wrong. Resolution has
been set to 480 x 640, I can't run any programs that require DirectX,
and in my display settings I can't change from 16 colours. I don't know
what Nvidia Dualview is and I don't want it. I just want to get back to
where I was before.

Can anyone help me? What things should I try?

Thanks.

 

[kony]

Hello:

I'm running Windows 2000 with an Nvidia GeForce 440MX graphics card.
Yesterday, having done nothing unusual, I started up the PC and it told
me that it had miraculously "found new hardware" -- Nvidia Dualview. At
the same time I find that my display has gone wrong. Resolution has
been set to 480 x 640, I can't run any programs that require DirectX,
and in my display settings I can't change from 16 colours. I don't know
what Nvidia Dualview is and I don't want it. I just want to get back to
where I was before.

Can anyone help me? What things should I try?

Thanks.

It is odd that this has happened, but for the time being I'd
try uninstalling the Detonator video driver, reinstalling
DirectX 9c, then installing the newest Detonator from
nvidia.com

 

[nostrebornitsuj]

I have no idea what you're talking about but you just may have pointed
me in the right direction. Thanks!

 

[kony]

I have no idea what you're talking about but you just may have pointed
me in the right direction. Thanks!

The video driver is in windows' Add/Remove programs,
DirectX 9c can be downloaded from Microsoft if you dont'
have it already (just search for it from their 'site).

Newest Detonator driver is here,
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
(Graphics Driver->Geforce and TNT2->Operating system)

 

[nostrebornitsuj]

Thanks very much. I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[nostrebornitsuj]

I've reinstalled the drivers but no joy. Device manager says the
graphics card and its drivers are "working properly" but Display
properties says that it's using Default Monitor on VGA. It sounds to me
like the graphics card is installed ok, but I just need to get WIndows
using it. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Mike]

I had this problem a while ago.
Remove all graphics grivers from in the display properties.
Shut down windoes and restart.
It should find your graphics card now.
Mike

 

[kony]

I've reinstalled the drivers but no joy. Device manager says the
graphics card and its drivers are "working properly" but Display
properties says that it's using Default Monitor on VGA. It sounds to me
like the graphics card is installed ok, but I just need to get WIndows
using it. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Did you uninstall them first?
Uninstall them, reboot, and choose standard VGA. THEN
install the latest DirectX (ver. 9c) and then the latest
driver. You could reinstall the last working driver, but
since that's the version that crapped out on you, IMO it's
better to choose a different/newer version.

 

[BruceM]

Please tell us if it is "onboard" graphics & if it is tell us the
motherboard brand & model number.
If it has a "plugin" graphics card, tell us if it is PCI or AGP slot & any
name or numbers you can find on it.
Once you get the operating system up & running you need to install the
PROPER drivers for the graphics being used to get all the benefits of that
card.

 

[nostrebornitsuj]

I've uninstalled all display drivers and now I can't boot, not even in
safe mode or VGA mode. An error flashes up momentarily and I think it
says "video driver failed to load".
name or numbers you can find on it.

It is AGP I think, and has a barcode sticker on it which says:

GEFORCE 4 MX440 64-bit 64MB DDR TV-OUT:77AT 103009976

 

[kony]

I've uninstalled all display drivers and now I can't boot, not even in
safe mode or VGA mode. An error flashes up momentarily and I think it
says "video driver failed to load".

name or numbers you can find on it.

It is AGP I think, and has a barcode sticker on it which says:

GEFORCE 4 MX440 64-bit 64MB DDR TV-OUT:77AT 103009976

It would seem you had (and even further now) a windows
problem rather than solely a video card problem... as plenty
of us use the same (framework of) Detonator drivers which
would not vary with the GF4MX compared to any other Geforce
card.

I suggest a repair install of Windows, if as you wrote there
is no way to boot windows anymore. Another alternative
would be to install a different video card (either in AGP or
concurrently a PCI card and set bios to make PCI the primary
display device), then booting windows with the alternate
video card. However, since it appears to be a windows
problem (it should not have stopped booting merely by
uninstalling the driver) there may be no way another card
would get you booted either... it's worth a try if you had
one but repair or reinstall overtop itself is probably
useful to get windows back to where it should be.

 

[BruceM]

Can you tell us what operating system you're using? Sounds terribly like 95
to me?

 

[kony]

Can you tell us what operating system you're using? Sounds terribly like 95
to me?

Actually the odds of it are incredibly low, only WinNT/2k/XP
have such horrible problems with mere hardware changes while
9x could plug and play just about anything.

Regardless, OP mentioned it's Win2k.