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I have a REALLY annoying computer problem and I need help with it.

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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The problem is multiple things:

1. When my computer starts up the monitor will 90% of the time, go into standby mode (as if it is not connected to anything). It can happen at the welcome screen OR at the desktop screen when it has been selected and has loaded.

2. When I right click on the desktop and go to Screen Resolution (I have Windows 7 Professional 64-bit) the computer detects more than one monitor, sometimes it's 2, sometimes it's 3 and I think once there were 4. And I only have one monitor, and if I try to change the settings for the monitor somehow, the monitor will go into standby (like the other problem), so these are most likely related somehow.

This starting happening when my brother did a button combination on the keyboard, I don't what it was and he won't tell me, it was possibly Windows Key + L, which is to lock the computer and all that happened was that the monitor went into standby. I told him to fix it but he couldn't, so he just restarted the computer and it's been like this for a couple of weeks, I've been trying to solve the problem but with no luck, that's why I came here.

I replaced my monitor with my brother's and the issue still persisted so the monitor is least most likely the problem.

My Monitor is a Chimei CMV 938D, my brother's is some Samsung one. My GPU is a Gigabyte GTX 260 OC, the exact model is GV-N26OC-896H. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L.

If you have any ideas to what the problem might be, please share and if you have any questions about my hardware, software or anything, please don't hesitate to ask. Thank You.

More about : annoying computer problem

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Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Try reinstalling the latest driver for the card.
Also check if the card heats up or the CPU heats up.
A temperature monitoring utility will help you with that.
To install the right drivers and everything, you'll need to uninstall the current drivers completely.
Make it a clean install by using another utility , I think it's down-loadable, esp. for Nvidia drivers as they seem to have some sticky business in one of their drivers.

I am currently on my brother's computer because as I was uninstalling the drivers from the control panel on the computer with the problem, the screen went into standby mode. I can't so anything because I can't see if the drivers have finished uninstalling or if it's asking something! What do I do?
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Try to start the system in safe mode and then see if it makes a difference.
If you are not sure of what might be on the screen and what it might be asking , since you can't see it, press 'Escape' a few times, when you see the HDD light stops blinking for a little while press Alt + F4 and then Enter.
This will hope fully get the system to shutdown

Then restart into safe mode and try it.

Also, before you do anything, go to the Monitors on screen menu, and reset it to default.

Well my brother just uninstalled the Nvidia drivers, now the Windows driver is in it's place and it seems fine so far. I remember reading somewhere that there were really safe Nvidia drivers somewhere in the 185.xx range. Can someone confirm this?
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Yup, you're right the safest drivers were 185.XX range. But for your Graphics Card. I'd suggest, download the latest drivers from the Nvidia site for your OS. They'll work perfectly fine.
I guess your brother just messed up somewhere earlier when he installed something else on the machine.
Try it now, it'll work fine. Actually it'll work a lot more better with the new drivers now.

My bro tried installing the newest drivers but the monitor went on standby halfway through the installation, this is most likely because i haven't used driver sweeper or anything. Can someone link me to a tutorial with steps that are easy to understand because last time i tried doing reinstalling, windows update came up and stuffed up everything.
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Here's the link to the Download:
http://downloads.guru3d.com/Guru3D---Driver-Sweeper-%28...

And here's the rest of the Page too:

How to use ?
Guru3D - Driver Sweeper is very easy to use. You only have to select the drivers you want to clean.
The best way to clean drivers is to first uninstall the drivers using the official uninstallers, reboot in Safe Mode and run Guru3D - Driver Sweeper. However, rebooting and not going into Safe Mode also works, but can cause some files not to be cleaned.

What can it be used for ?
The current supported drivers are NVIDIA (Display and Chipset), ATI (Display), Creative (Sound), Ageia (PhysX), MMouse and Realtek (Sound).

All the settings are saved in an ini file. Nothing is created in the registry, so it's possible to use it as a portable program. Log files can be saved to the harddisk and viewed as well. You can find the logs under the Tools menu.

System requirements:
The Guru3D - Driver Sweeper is fully tested on Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows & 7 RC. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported.

More info and revision history can be found here:

* Official Guru3D

most important change in this version that it fixes the problems found with 2.0.5 with Desktop Icon. This unfortunately means that previous saved icon data isn't compatible with 2.1.0.

Although it looks much better on the actual page....... but here's a way of going about it too, it's simple to use and try not to uninstall anything other than the Nvidia things....... but remove them all first from the Control Panel and only then using the sweeper.
Be sure to remove the PhysX drivers too.....
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

yup, select the nvidia drivers in the normal mode from the Control Panel and uninstall.
Reboot .... into safe mode
Run the sweeper....
Let it analyze your system, then from the list of drivers displayed select (ALL) Nvidia drivers including the LAN or other ones if there maybe.
Select clean.
And then reboot

I did what you said but when i logged into normal mode, windows updater or something got the drivers for me which i didn't really want, so how do i see if it installed the latest drivers or if it's still got the old Microsoft windows drivers?
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

It got the old microsoft drivers......
Go to Windows Update , uninstall the updated driver.... And set the Update option to " Ask me which Updates to Install"
Later on after you have installed latest Nvidia drivers and it ask for the Update to be installed, disable that particular update, and tick the box which says never install this update.
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

I have had a few problems with Microsoft updating my Nvida Drivers and it has led me to conclude that the drivers from the Chipset maker are certainly better as far as Nvidia is concerned.
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

And Check the Name of the update Last received from Microsoft after you installed or tried to install the Nvidia Drivers, uninstall only that particular update....
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Then you must be wrong, when you say that it checks for and downloads an update....
Anyway, go to the Device manager in the Properties of My Computer.
Right click on the Display Adapter , Expand and reinstall Driver, when it says install from windows update or anything else, say no and select install driver from particular location, browse to C:\Nvidia\XXX.xx.xxx for the latest driver where it lies uncompressed on the drive.
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

ok
just reinstall it again and then after you reboot, and it automatically selcts the driver.
Follow the steps again, but don't use the sweeper again
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Lol ............. Sorry
Are you sure the folder is not there?
Cos you're supposed to be using Sweeper before you installed the new latest drivers from Nvidia.
Maybe it's a hidden folder, so just type the address in the my computer address bar
C:\Nvidia\

and see if the folders inside are there.

Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

have you uninstalled the physx driver too?
If not, then Uninstall that too......

And you'll have to start from scratch after that.
By the way just leave your system on for sometime, check the power saver profile and set all the power option to never shutting down or always on.
See if your monitor shuts off, and then get back.

Well, i tried uninstalling the drivers in normal mode but my monitor went into standby at the beginning of the uninstall, so i waited a while, restarted manually and went into safe mode with networking and here i am. can i uninstall them in the control panel in safe mode?
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

I don't think so, it'll give you a message like 32bit mode or something of that sort. But you can still give it a try.
You can disable the drivers for you display adapter in the safe mode through the Device manager so I think you might be able to uninstall it (the Driver) for the display adapter from there too...
Try it...

I got into normal mode and i checked in control panel and there seemed to be no drivers installed so i went straight for the new drivers setup file, started installing, monitor went on standby... >:(  so i put my computer to sleep and woke it up right after and..... what do i do to check if it's ok?

i started it up today and the screen went into standby again. so i just uninstalled the drivers in safe mode and let the microsoft ones install. do you think reinstalling windows would make it work? oh yeah, i don't think i told you this but i have multiple users on this pc, if you were wondering, because i read that if you have one user it would load perfectly about 85% of the time.
Graphics card Master
Monitor Expert

Multiple users should not make a difference , if , you have one administrator and the others are assigned just simple right but disallowed installation or un-installation rights.
Yes, a clean install of Windows should help, but I wouldn't be able to confirm it.
Although it's worth a try since you've been with this problem for the past 36 hours now. A 45 minute installation would really help save time and figure out the problem.
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