Driver issue with my GTX 260?

[Astvinr]

Driver issue with my GTX 260? (solved)

I'm having some weird things happening to my screen every once in a while.
It has nothing to do with my card being overheated or damaged, I'm fairly certain of that.
I talked to a friend about it and he thought it was probably a driver issue.
It can happen at pretty much any time, whether I'm playing a game or just browsing the internet.

So what I'm getting is:

1. Sudden black screens, lasting for only a moment. Usually just 1, but sometimes 2 in a row.

2. Some sort of... well it's like if you're watching an analog TV and the reception is bad, but only for a split second and not to a big extent. It's just some small bright lines appearing here and there and then disappear.
It's hard to describe, and harder yet to capture a picture of.

3. Sudden horizontal lines appearing. They can be black, red, green... well those are the colors I've noticed anyway. The lines are very thin and absolutely horizontal, and they're only visible for a split second.

I didn't have any of these problems early on, but after a few weeks or so I started having these problems, and it has increased the last week or so.

I'm using the GeForce Release 181 WHQL

181.22 January 22, 2009 drivers for my GTX 260 (216SP)

First I was using the drivers given to me by Windows Update, and I never had any problems back then. But I can't say that the problems started with the new drivers either... but I would like to try the ones I got from Windows Update again. I just can't seem to find them. They don't show in windows update anyway.

Here are the details of that update:

-----
NVIDIA driver update for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (Prerelease - WDDM 1.1)

Installation date: ‎2009-‎01-‎21 13:39

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Optional

This driver was provided by NVIDIA for support of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (Prerelease - WDDM 1.1)

More information:
Winqual Help

Help and Support:
Select a Product Solution Center
-----

But as I said, since then I've installed the other drivers.
Anyone who knows what to do?

 

[Astvinr]

I looked through the Microsoft Update Catalog and managed to find it myself.
I'll let you all know if it helped or not.

 

[Astvinr]

Nope, that didn't help one bit.

I guess I'll experiment a bit with switching monitors (I'm using Samsung Syncmaster T220 now) and trying my current monitor on another computer.
Hopefully that will isolate the problem.

But I don't have time right now because I've got a ton of other stuff to do... so it could take a while.
I'd appreciate it if you'd offer your thoughts in the meantime.

 

[Romulinx2]

Nope, that didn't help one bit.

I guess I'll experiment a bit with switching monitors (I'm using Samsung Syncmaster T220 now) and trying my current monitor on another computer.
Hopefully that will isolate the problem.

But I don't have time right now because I've got a ton of other stuff to do... so it could take a while.
I'd appreciate it if you'd offer your thoughts in the meantime.

The Nvidea 182.05 Beta driver for Vista works well. I'm using the GTX 260 card myself with no problems. The other thing it could be is a connection problem (Video card or cable)

 

[Astvinr]

Problem solved.
It appears the problem was simply that my graphics card wasn't properly connected with the motherboard.

My computer wouldn't start (at all) a couple days back, so I opened it up and checked the cable between the power button and the motherboard, but to get to it I had to remove my graphics card. When I put it back the computer started as normal and the issues I mentioned earlier in this thread were resolved as well.
Hurray!

 

[Romulinx2]

Problem solved.
It appears the problem was simply that my graphics card wasn't properly connected with the motherboard.

My computer wouldn't start (at all) a couple days back, so I opened it up and checked the cable between the power button and the motherboard, but to get to it I had to remove my graphics card. When I put it back the computer started as normal and the issues I mentioned earlier in this thread were resolved as well.
Hurray!

I'm glad you checked your connections and sorted the problem. It was the only other thing I could think of.

 

[Astvinr]

Not as glad a I am.
I was seriously starting to question if what I bought was quality stuff or not.
When I bought the parts I was pretty sure it was all good, and now I'm happy to say I still think so.

Since I mentioned it, I would just like to say that I'm really impressed with my WD Caviar Green 1TB drive. It gets a 6.0 WEI rating even though it's just a 5400 rpm drive! People said I should get some other disk as my system drive, but I really don't see why this one isn't good enough.
It's silent, fast, energy efficient, has plenty of storage space. It's just awesome.

 

[nitricpyro]

I also have this problem... However adjusting the card did not help at all.

I have a GTX 260 and a Samsung 2033. Same exact issue.

I've used two GTX 260 cards, two cables, two different computers. I sent my original monitor in to have it repaird, it was sent back in the same condition so I had that monitor exchanged so now I'm on the second monitor also.

I just don't have a clue as to why this would be happening.

I have a Samsung T260HD that hasn't had even a hint of this problem... works perfectly.

If anyone has any idea PLEASE let me know... but until then, I think it might be an issue with the TYPE of cable used i.e. the DVI-D connector and cable from the monitor into a DVI-I connector on the video card. Perhaps they just aren't going to work with each other.

Another really funny thing is that when I use a DVI-VGA adapter at the video card and use the VGA connector on the monitor it works perfectly (albeit with the lower quality slightly less sharp image that comes with VGA)