GeForce GT220 with Asus A8N-E on Windows 7

[kronflux]

hey everyone,
this is a problem I'm having with a buddy of mine's computer..
he's got a GeForce GT220(it actually says 216 on the card itself, but I know I searched 220 when I solved the problem previously, and thats the closest driver that seems to be on nvidia's site.. so.)
he's got an Asus A8N-E and windows 7 installed.
basically what happens is windows shows the "starting windows" screen, then goes to a black screen and freezes there.
as I said, I've solved the problem before, I guess it was a problem with the newer drivers or something? after hours of searching, I found someone with the same problem who switched to a previous version of the drivers, in fact, I think the drivers were Windows Vista drivers. after installing those, it worked perfectly.
unfortunately I have no idea where I found out which drivers to use, and am failing to come up with the appropriate search terms in google, so I'm hoping someone here can help out with the problem and save me several hours of searching again!

 

[wullthebull]

cant you just go to nvidias site and then to drivers and put in your system as vista and it should find the drivers for you

 

[kronflux]

well I guess the latest drivers, regardless of the system, don't work for this combination of hardware and operating system. so, as much as I'd like for your answer to be the right one, it's not quite that simple

 

[thefabe]

Welcome to Seven Forums. after doing some searching and not knowing if your running 32 or 64 bit Seven. Ausu only offers Vista drivers. I read on another forum about bios updates for some PCI-e cards causing freezing. They reccommend you have the lastest chipset drivers installed then check in on updating the bios as can be found here under expanded bios this is 32 bit Vista ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support- Hope in some way this can lead you to a fix. Fabe

 

[kronflux]

sorry. I did forget to mention, it is a 32bit install of windows 7. and the graphics card is a BGF Tech GeForce GT220 1GB DDR2 PCI-E. (BFGEGT2201024D2BE)
after a lot of searching, I've come up with no luck in finding a bios update for this card. the manufacturer's website only offers a link for drivers, and that simply takes you to the nVidia site.
I also looked on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 285 275 260 ATI Radeon HD 4890 4870 4850 4830 :: MVKTech :: On the Edge of Technology but again found nothing.
and I've already updated the motherboard to the latest bios which had no effect whatsoever.
any ideas?

 

[Rik55]

It sound like the new drivers are selecting a resolution that your monitor doesn't support.

Try- Boot, Hold F8 - Select Enable Low Resolution mode (640x480). This will enable Windows to load with full driver support at a set resolution of 640x480x32@60Hz. You should then be able to open the nVidia Control Centre and select your monitors native resolution.

 

[kronflux]

alrighty, I tried that, and it did the same thing. just goes to that blank screen right after the starting windows logo.
I tried safe mode, which worked fine, but unfortunately you can't open nvidia control panel from safe mode. is there some registry key I can change or something that stores the default resolution to boot with?

 

[Rik55]

What about trying the other port on the video card (use an adapter if needed). Maybe the driver has changed the order and it now thinks that your monitor is monitor 2 (which by default is off until extended)

 

[kronflux]

well, I have dual monitors set up, so even if the default was overridden, it would simply switch to the other monitor.

 

[thefabe]

Sorry the link I provided only shows a bios update to correct PCI-e freezing with 64 bit Vista.

 

[kronflux]

ah. 64 bit. I dont think that applies to this problem as A) we're running 32 bit, and B) it's windows 7, not vista, granted they are very similar, but in no way the same OS.

I think we were on to something with the resolution issues though. I hooked up an old LCD monitor to it, and it booted just fine. the dual monitor setup was using two somewhat older CRT monitors.
so basically it would seem that whats happening is that windows is detecting that there are new CRT monitors hooked up, and nVidia is automatically switching to the native resolution default, which is too high for the CRT monitors to display. using the boot option to switch to a lower resolution also isn't helping because it only starts in that lower resolution. windows still detects the new monitors and switches to the native accordingly, so it fails to boot properly.
so what I need to figure out is a way to remove any higher resolutions so that the native can only be as high as what these monitors can display.

 

[kronflux]

Alright problem solved, I uninstalled the driver, booted in standard generic display drivers, and edited the driver in the setup folder, also edited the modes file. basically removed every resolution that was higher than the one I want. then installed the driver. got the driver unsigned crap messages and whatnot, but I got around those. had some further difficulties, but I tricked it by booting with the LCD plugged in, then connected the two CRT monitors and changed their appropriate resolutions. so it's all up and running, thanks for the help, but I guess I didn't really need most of it, I just needed people to bounce ideas off of

 

[Rik55]

FIXED: Cool. You've fixed it. I was too busy typing this out



Regarding the BIOS update. This is a fix for all Operating Systems regarding some VGA cards not being detected properly. A8N-E Bios version 1013. 2006/3/5. You should install it may be relevant. It only mentions XP & Win2003 because Vista & 7 hadn't been released the last time this BIOS was updated. It may be that your card isn't detecting your monitor as a plug and play and is selecting the wrong native resolution.

You should also check that the Monitor is using the driver supplied by the manufacturer and not Microsofts generic driver. The Monitor driver should tell nVidia's driver the LCDs top resolution and exact timming at that resolution.

You could also edit the nv_disp file yourself and remove any resolution (nv_modes) above your monitors native. This would only cause an issue if you changed monitors for one with a higher resolution, but by that time you will have probably updated the drivers anyway.

Normally, you would also check that the chipset drivers are up to date, as this can affect how the card detects your monitor, but nVidia don't have nForce4 drivers for Win7.