8600GT: Crashes at boot, only with 2nd monitor

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I have an 8600GT board (Gigabyte gv-nx86t256h). It works fine with my Dell 2407WFP as the only monitor. When I plug in a monitor into the second video connector, Windows XP (SP3) crashes when booting. The crash is a fraction of second of blue-screen, then resets back to POST and BIOS startup. The crash occurs after the XP logo screen has displayed, but before the desktop appears.

I am running the latest drivers from the Gigabyte site for this card (163.71). I also tried loading the generic NVidia drivers 182.06, but it did not solve the problem.

I have tried connecting the second monitor with a direct DVI cable, or using a DVI-VGA adapter at the video card and the VGA input on the secondary monitor (Acer X193W+BD). I get the crash either way.

Anybody have any ideas how to solve this?

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Sounds like a power supply issue. Your video card tries to draw more watts to push out into the 2nd monitor and it hangs when it doesn't receive it. Does it crash with only the Acer connected? And then try the Dell monitor only on the second DVI port. Isolate the problem whether it's the port or monitors.

 

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Further information:

I can enable the secondary port temporarily by plugging the monitor in while Windows is running. I can go to Device Manager and "scan for hardware changes". It recognized the monitor. Here's where it gets really strange. Windows does not see the second monitor at all. Display properties only shows one. However, the NVidia control panel shows it under "Set Up Multiple Displays". Both monitors are listed. However, the normal "DualView" mode is not available. The only options are Clone and Span. These require both monitors to be at the same resolution. But I can use Clone mode, and it will drive both monitors with video (the same of course). Or I can use span mode, and it drops my 24" monitor down to the lower resolution of the Acer, but it does work.

Of course it only works until I re-start, then it crashes while starting.

As I have researched threads on "dualview not available", the most common suggestion is to re-start and let Windows enumerate both monitors while booting. But that seems to be the problem - Windows crashes while enumerating the second monitor.

While a power supply problem is always possible, I think it is unlikely. The power supply has 2X the capacity used by the system, and the card has proven it can drive both monitors. I suppose there could be some "current surge" that happens only while enumerating the monitors at startup, but that seems far-fetched.

I have tried various combinations of ports and analog / DVI, moving the monitors between the two ports. Basically, any time there are two monitors, it crashes. Otherwise it works. Either monitor individually, on either port, works.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Unistall the video card in hardware/device manager. When it reboots, cancel the Windows driver update and use Nvidia setup to install the latest video drivers.

Check your motherboard's manufacturer website and flash it to the latest bios.

 

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I installed the latest NVidia drivers (182.50). (Uninstalled existing NVidia drivers. Rebooted in Safe Mode, canceled Windows VGA setup. Ran Driver Sweeper to remove any NVidia leftovers. Rebooted normally, canceled Windows VGA setup, ran NVidia setup for 182.50. Rebooted again).
That did not fix the problem - it still crashes when booting for any multi-monitor configuration.


I already have the latest video BIOS - 60.84.5E.00.00.

I tried moving the video card to the other PCIe-16 slot. It did not make any difference.


I have run the complete set of tests on every combination of port, and VGA vs DVI connection. Here are the results:

 

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I knew it was driver-related, since I could uninstall all NVidia drivers, and multi-monitor would work with the default VGA driver.

I started testing older and older NVidia drivers, since it seems the quality of the drivers goes down over time. At one point, I forgot to unplug the secondary monitor when re-starting after the driver installation. The system booted normally, and both monitors were available. But subsequent re-boots crashed. I thought that it could be related to driver load order, since the first time after install, the NVidia drivers would load differently (using RunOnce).

I started by commenting out every non-essential driver and service with Autoruns, and was able to get it to boot with multi-monitor support.

After hundreds of reboots, I finally narrowed it down to Kerio Personal Firewall's "Boot Time Protection" feature.
I never would have suspected a firewall could crash a computer only when two monitors are used, but that is exactly what happens.

I hope this helps someone else down the road - it has certainly taken an extraordinary amount of time to solve.

 

[Guest]

I knew it was driver-related, since I could uninstall all NVidia drivers, and multi-monitor would work with the default VGA driver.

I started testing older and older NVidia drivers, since it seems the quality of the drivers goes down over time. At one point, I forgot to unplug the secondary monitor when re-starting after the driver installation. The system booted normally, and both monitors were available. But subsequent re-boots crashed. I thought that it could be related to driver load order, since the first time after install, the NVidia drivers would load differently (using RunOnce).

I started by commenting out every non-essential driver and service with Autoruns, and was able to get it to boot with multi-monitor support.

After hundreds of reboots, I finally narrowed it down to Kerio Personal Firewall's "Boot Time Protection" feature.
I never would have suspected a firewall could crash a computer only when two monitors are used, but that is exactly what happens.

I hope this helps someone else down the road - it has certainly taken an extraordinary amount of time to solve.

I have the exact same issue, but I am not using a personal firewall! What a pain! I even went out and purchased another video card! No change... Where else can I research this issue?