This is more of a post complaining than it is asking for help/advice.

Screen corruption has been a problem with every version of the nVidia driver's I've used, with the possible exception of the default ones Microsoft ships with Vista. I've tried whatever it was just before the 100.65s, then I tried the 100.65s, 101.70s and now 158.18. The problem has not gotten any better throughout all of these revisions.


This is what you see when Vista asks for your permission to do something. Notice how the continue button isn't even visible initially.


Now the continue button appears when the mouse is hovered over where you guess the button to be.

Hardware involved here is a eVGA 7800gs co AGP card. The pictures were taken with 158.18 drivers. The corruption isn't usually capturable with print screen, although after an "episode" with VLC it was and I got a screenie of it shoot me a message if you want to see it, but it contains some text that violates the TOS of this board. Basically everything is not displaying except the taskbar, and a few items I've drug the mouse over.



That is what happens if you open an app that drops Vista into Classic mode, the app that caused that was Trillian. On the right side of that 2nd pic was my Trillian buddy list AFTER I had minimized it. It shows up all washed out white in that pic because of the horrible lighting conditions for a digital camera shot, but in reality it was displaying the buddy list in a somewhat readable format (text was clear, just parts of the list missing).


Login screen.

I don't know what NVIDIA is "fixing" in these continually updated drivers, I glance over their documented changes when I update them, but it seems like they are fixing minor issues and adding features rather than tackling a real problem here.

There is nothing wrong with the card (runs perfect in XP) and there are no temperature/overheating issues. About the only other thing I can think of is a bios issue and I may start slowly looking into that. But a quick google search reveals there are tons of people having problems with drivers.

Edit 1: Added 2 more pictures
Edit 2: Added login screen pic
Update: Flashed to latest motherboard BIOS, no difference.

Perhaps your trouble is elsewhere. nVidia is universally rated by users (including this forum) as the best for video cards and for drivers. We see no special problems between VISTA and nVidia...
There are always troubles that crop up because video graphics cards are so fragile, but I would not consider a blanket indictment of nVidia as valid.
I would be more likely to consider power supply and memory.

Perhaps...I'd still think drivers though.

I can assure you the problem is not power supply or ram related. RAM tests fine with memtest, and I've got a 485W Enermax Noisetaker II power supply. It runs fine in XP.

As for drivers nVIDIA does make great graphics cards and good drivers. Yet recently they have been lacking somewhat. Still Vista is new deal with the initial problems!

It is Nvidia drivers and Vista especially in their 8800 cards. This has been a problem posted all over the internet.

There was an issue with fan speed control and vista I remember...

Download something that allows you to monitor the temp of the card in both XP and vista, plus RPM of fan...

Remember that Vistas desktop is rendered by the card...

To me it really looks like a overheating issue...

Got a PCI-E 7900GT myself with no problems in Vista, though it's watercooled

It doesn't do it in games (C&C3) so I think that removes overheating right there. If not I have more information to back that up:

Occurs on bootup at the login screen, from a cold boot - See pic above.

Does fine in the desktop, never a problem until a message box asking for permission pops up.

Doesn't do it on all message boxes, only vista ones (that wouldn't relate to temp but whatever)

Goes absolutely ape if an app switches it over to 'classic' mode, so bad its unreadable and often unrecognisable (things don't redraw if you move a window), and occationally vista won't kick out of classic when the app is closed, which is why I don't have a picture of that happening - I really don't want to deal with getting it back in aero and cleaned up if it doesn't do it automatically. If you guys absolutely need proof though I can take pics, even record a video, but you should believe me I have no reason to lie.

And why did you get vista again?

LOL!

Seriously, though, there are so many people experiencing issues with Vista it is a wonder more people don't wait until SP1 comes out. Of course, when it comes to Laptops or PC builders like HP, Dell, etc., the average consumer has no choice.

Lets not clutter this thread with anti Vista talk, we have Meeting Spot and a thread in there for such talk. But for a quick answer - why not? I've got an Athlon 64 box dual booting XP and Ubuntu, a G3 Tower running Panther (10.3.9), a Pentium D box as a dedicated media center running XP Media Center Edition, a Powerbook G4 running Tiger (10.4.9), and a K62 running Windows 2000.

Have you tried the latest drivers yet, SNGX? There are reports of them fixing these display corruption issues. A lot of other issues still remain though. Just read the Release Notes. There are so many issues, mainly with games, that are still not fixed.

Yes, I'm on the ones released the 17th. Tried whatever was before the 100.65, the 100.65, 101.70, and 158.18 (april 17th release). If anything it was worse with 101.70 and 158.18 than earlier, but even the early ones weren't flawless. I'm also doing a control panel uninstall of the drivers and rebooting before installing newer. Although this last one had a built in uninstaller/reboot install with it.

Try that latest beta drivers off guru3d.com

though it sounds wierd that you would have this problem through so many driver releases

Maybe it's another driver causing it... Got your mobo drivers and stuff installed?

Yes, running the latest chipset drivers from motherboard manufacturer's site. Latest bios too.

Guru3d doesn't have any newer drivers than the 158.18 release that came out yesterday from nvidia. I've been watching this problem pretty seriously since the 100.65s and since then there have only been 2 releases the 101.70 and 158.18 (no idea why the huge jump in numbers - its not even a 8 series only set).

What if you keep Vista in "classic" desktop mode?

I believe it is horrible all the time, but I don't know if I've selected classic before the forced classic switch. I'll troubleshoot more in about 3-5 hours when I get off work. But there are leaked 165.01 drivers out I've discovered ->

Windows XP 165.01 only: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=62SSG7NR
Windows Vista 32 165.01 only: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KFE5BZP8
Windows Vista 64 165.01 only: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1ST1ON40
All in 1 file: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2HI42FPE

I can't vouch for the safety of those so download at your own risk. I'll be giving them a shot after work.

Edit - Real life got in the way of playing with toys, I'll test it another day.

Edit 3: Mict - Switching to classic manually still causes the exact same corruption, so bad I literally have to guess where things are to get it back.

Does XP and Vista show the same kind of driver in Device Manager's "System Devices" section for AGP controller?

When the card worked (possibly) with the Microsoft's own driver, was VIA's chipset driver installed at that point?

I don't think it would hurt to try to change the AGP driver to Microsoft's own.

1. Don't know. Will check.

2. Don't think so.

3. Will give that a shot.

Well, it's everyone's right to choose to run or not run Vista, isn't it?
Personally, I wouldn't know why I would even consider trying Vista; I'm just not interested.
But--Your Mileage May Vary.

Now, as you have probably figured out by now, I won't be of much help with any Vista issues, so I'll just shut up now.