- Oct 5, 2012
- 7
- 0
- 10,510
Hello all.
First time poster and I was hoping you all could help solve a possible graphics card problem. If this is in the wrong subforum, sorry and feel free to move it.
Windows XP Pro Version 2002 SP3 Build 2600 x86
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual ~2204 Mhz
3,072.00 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256.00 MB with some SAMSUNG monitor 1920 x 1200 x 32 bits x 60 hertz connected via DVI, also latest (I believe) legacy drivers 9/23/2012 6.14.13.681 signed
All cased together in a Gateway GM504E
Others thing that might prove useful: I'm a weekend gamer. I play older games such as Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2. Sometimes I also make videos in Sony Vegas. This computer, when I use it on the weekends, also runs the folding@home program which is set to use 75% CPU to fold proteins, I have it currently set to 50% though.
This is old stuff, yeah, but a friend got an upgrade so I was given this. It's been working comfortably since the beginning of August, 2012. Some time last month when I was plugging in the new monitor, the video card drivers didn't load. It appeared to have been uninstalled or failed by itself but I simply reinstalled the latest version (April 2012) from Nvidia's website, everything is working fine again. Maybe it's just some isolated unrelated incident, I'll leave it there just in case.
Now here's where it gets fun. After a nice week of college, I start using the computer and discover a problem. On the desktop, if I open a new window, say, My Computer, Control Panel, etc input will freeze for about 10 seconds, then the monitor will blank for a couple of seconds, then return back to normal as if nothing happened, no BSOD, no crash, just welcome back to the desktop with that folder you wanted. The method to replicate the problem is very consistent, as much with the results. It's not random, I can open a window and confidently guess with good probability it'll happen. Opening default Task Manager cycles the problem the most, probably because of the way it's drawing works, and very often it'll take a good 30 seconds to close it.
In order to temporarily disable the problem I'd go to Display Properties > Advanced > Troubleshoot > Hardware acceleration and set the meter down to basic accelerations, so the problem is DirectDraw and Direct3d, cursor and advanced drawing, bitmap, or any of the above. Once I do that, the problem is gone. Of course, makes a new set of problems like not being able to play Battlefield 2 without seeing my mouse cursor and some other performance results and issues.
At one point I received some BSOD too, something about a nv4 infinite display loop. Only once though. Never got it again. I installed some third party driver patch just to see if it fixed my issue but it didn't. That and I also tried reinstalled the NVIDIA Geforce 6600 drivers again. And restarting the computer plenty.
What's interesting is on max hardware acceleration once I black screen around my way into launching Battlefield 2 it runs fine, max settings (no AA though) 1280 x 1024 average 30 fps. I had the freeze occur only randomly once that time and it looped the sound too as it the game crashed but after ~20 seconds it was all over, back to normal game. But it wasn't consistent like working with explorer.exe. Same with S.W.A.T. 4 .
I've done some Google searching and some folks say it could be a power supply issue. I don't know what my current power supply is though. Another says it could be because the card or drivers, NVIDIA Geforce 6600 is configured to run too fast and entering the BIOS to disable some AGP option would solve it, although the friend that gave me this build said the card isn't AGP and this option doesn't appear in the BIOS anyway. I used to think it was video card loose connection only until I was reminded it completely froze input. And this has only happened recently, everything was fine for about 2 months or so.
Here's a video showing the problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6laE29a-HkA
Wrap up
Input freezes for 10 seconds, followed by monitor going blank then back on upon opening any new window in explorer.exe. Battlefield 2 game runs pretty fine though, not like getting 2-5 FPS or BSODS. Can be temporarily fixed by disabling hardware acceleration in Display Properties > Advanced > Troubleshoot
Any thoughts? Thank you.
Nov 16- I changed the title of the post
I received another error message recently. "The nv4_disp display driver has stopped working normally." It occured when I turned acceleration back up and let it go through its freeze cycles for a few minutes.
After that, I also ran a video memory stress test. No problems seen here
I really hope it's only power supply unit related, I was talking with the friend who gave the build and said the PSU unit is somewhere around 300 watt because the card is floating around 280 watts needed and he wanted to give me some leverage. I don't know how many watts are being used/provided right now though.
First time poster and I was hoping you all could help solve a possible graphics card problem. If this is in the wrong subforum, sorry and feel free to move it.
Windows XP Pro Version 2002 SP3 Build 2600 x86
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual ~2204 Mhz
3,072.00 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256.00 MB with some SAMSUNG monitor 1920 x 1200 x 32 bits x 60 hertz connected via DVI, also latest (I believe) legacy drivers 9/23/2012 6.14.13.681 signed
All cased together in a Gateway GM504E
Others thing that might prove useful: I'm a weekend gamer. I play older games such as Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2. Sometimes I also make videos in Sony Vegas. This computer, when I use it on the weekends, also runs the folding@home program which is set to use 75% CPU to fold proteins, I have it currently set to 50% though.
This is old stuff, yeah, but a friend got an upgrade so I was given this. It's been working comfortably since the beginning of August, 2012. Some time last month when I was plugging in the new monitor, the video card drivers didn't load. It appeared to have been uninstalled or failed by itself but I simply reinstalled the latest version (April 2012) from Nvidia's website, everything is working fine again. Maybe it's just some isolated unrelated incident, I'll leave it there just in case.
Now here's where it gets fun. After a nice week of college, I start using the computer and discover a problem. On the desktop, if I open a new window, say, My Computer, Control Panel, etc input will freeze for about 10 seconds, then the monitor will blank for a couple of seconds, then return back to normal as if nothing happened, no BSOD, no crash, just welcome back to the desktop with that folder you wanted. The method to replicate the problem is very consistent, as much with the results. It's not random, I can open a window and confidently guess with good probability it'll happen. Opening default Task Manager cycles the problem the most, probably because of the way it's drawing works, and very often it'll take a good 30 seconds to close it.
In order to temporarily disable the problem I'd go to Display Properties > Advanced > Troubleshoot > Hardware acceleration and set the meter down to basic accelerations, so the problem is DirectDraw and Direct3d, cursor and advanced drawing, bitmap, or any of the above. Once I do that, the problem is gone. Of course, makes a new set of problems like not being able to play Battlefield 2 without seeing my mouse cursor and some other performance results and issues.
At one point I received some BSOD too, something about a nv4 infinite display loop. Only once though. Never got it again. I installed some third party driver patch just to see if it fixed my issue but it didn't. That and I also tried reinstalled the NVIDIA Geforce 6600 drivers again. And restarting the computer plenty.
What's interesting is on max hardware acceleration once I black screen around my way into launching Battlefield 2 it runs fine, max settings (no AA though) 1280 x 1024 average 30 fps. I had the freeze occur only randomly once that time and it looped the sound too as it the game crashed but after ~20 seconds it was all over, back to normal game. But it wasn't consistent like working with explorer.exe. Same with S.W.A.T. 4 .
I've done some Google searching and some folks say it could be a power supply issue. I don't know what my current power supply is though. Another says it could be because the card or drivers, NVIDIA Geforce 6600 is configured to run too fast and entering the BIOS to disable some AGP option would solve it, although the friend that gave me this build said the card isn't AGP and this option doesn't appear in the BIOS anyway. I used to think it was video card loose connection only until I was reminded it completely froze input. And this has only happened recently, everything was fine for about 2 months or so.
Here's a video showing the problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6laE29a-HkA
Wrap up
Input freezes for 10 seconds, followed by monitor going blank then back on upon opening any new window in explorer.exe. Battlefield 2 game runs pretty fine though, not like getting 2-5 FPS or BSODS. Can be temporarily fixed by disabling hardware acceleration in Display Properties > Advanced > Troubleshoot
Any thoughts? Thank you.
Nov 16- I changed the title of the post
I received another error message recently. "The nv4_disp display driver has stopped working normally." It occured when I turned acceleration back up and let it go through its freeze cycles for a few minutes.
After that, I also ran a video memory stress test. No problems seen here
I really hope it's only power supply unit related, I was talking with the friend who gave the build and said the PSU unit is somewhere around 300 watt because the card is floating around 280 watts needed and he wanted to give me some leverage. I don't know how many watts are being used/provided right now though.
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