Odd problem with Nvidia driver

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fw2004

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Hi;
I have a BFG GeForce 9800 512MB viceo card with a Viewsonic VX2000 which was working fine until I updated the NVidia driver (from the BFG site).
What happens has been that when the screen is dark, I can see horizontal noise lines on the left side of the screen.

This has happened each time I updated the display drivers from the original version that came on the BFG CD, which is V 6.14.11.7824.
That original version works fine.

I have tried updating the drivers three times since purchasing this card back in March.

There is really no reason I need to update the drivers, since the older ones are working fine. I was just curious to see if a newer driver will not have this problem.

My OS is Windows XP Pro, SP3 with all updates installed.
My system is Asus P5AD2-E Premium with Intel P4 @ 3.4Ghz, being OC'd to about 3.9G.
The overclocking has nothing to do with this problem by the way; I started seeing this before I did any tweaking.

When I tried the latest NVidia driver, V 6.14.11.9038 today, I had an even more serious problem; While running Adobe Photoshop 7.0, the screen would flicker occasionally, sometimes blacking out long enough for the "Digital" icon to appear in the lower right of the screen.

My opinion on this is that there is an incompatability issue between the 9800 card and my Viewsonic VX2000 monitor when the latest driver is installed.
I also use a smaller Eizo LCD as a second monitor, but never tried making it the primary, since it is an analog monitor, and that test would be pretty much worthless anyway.

I have also tried discussing this with BFG's tech team, and didn't really get anywhere, because as soon as I found that the old driver worked, I figured it was a waste of my time and theirs. But now I think I will send them another report on this.

Any ideas ?

Thanks

FW
 
That ViewSonic has a terrible history of reliability, and has been causing problems since it was first released to the market How sure are you that the ViewSonic is not part of the problem.
 
This does appear to be a monitor issue.
I checked the drivers, my system was up to date except that I had not re-installed the Viewsonic driver after my last Windows XP Pro install, so I did that. At first, it appeared that the noise was lighter, but I believe that it gets a little worse after the monitor has been on for a while.

Just an hour ago, I re-installed the latest NVidia driver, updated my RAID driver (no connection there, I was on Intel looking for updated 925X drivers, and found the other one).

The noise is there, but is only visible with a very dark screen.
If I shut off the monitor, but leave the computer running, then come back about 15-20 minutes later and turn the monitor on, the noise does not appear at first, but starts again after the monitor has been on for a few minutes.
It gets a bit worse over time, but it stabilizes to a point where the noise is constant in the left and sometimes the right edges of the screen.

If this is a monitor issue, I have no idea of why I don't see the noise with the older NVidia drivers.

Additionally:
When I had the BFG 6800 card, I never saw the noise. It started when I upgraded to the 9800.
At first, I thought the card was defective, but why would a driver make the difference in that case?

Also, this problem occurrs only when the resolution is set to the monitor's max at 1600 X 1200 @ 60HZ.

This whole thing looks more like the sort of trouble one would have using analog systems, but this is digital.

Just now, as I am writing this, the whole screen blanked for a fraction of a second, and it happened twice. I think I have to roll back the driver to the one that always worked.

FW
 
have u tried getting drivers from the Nvidia website?

Yes. BFG re-directs my browser to NVidia when I go through their site as well.

I have done enough experimenting now, and believe this is a monitor issue. I have sent a tech support request to Viewsonic.
At least the older driver works correctly. I don't think I'm suffering any having to use it.

FW
 
i wish u luck with tech support but if your old drivers work but not the new ones, i wud guess that it is a software related issue rather than a hardware one....u shud try messing with the controls on the moniter, use the same resolution at 75Hz if supported , and also try connecting another display (using the same interface u are using to conenct ur current monitor )to see if the problem occurs on other displays as well
 
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