Ok, for months now this issue has plagued me, and it seems many others, with some variations from user to user apparently. Every time I install a driver above the early 16x.xx series (can't remember which was last to work fine, 163 series I believe it was), it will install fine as it should, but on reboot, I will loose signal about 10 seconds after the login prompt and getting to the desktop, and every reboot thereafter the signal is just dropped right after the windows loading bar vanishes. The only way I am able to use my display again is by connecting my PC to a TV or something else through S-video input, then go into the nvidia driver control panel and swap primary output back to my DVI monitor (a Chimei/CMV 221D). The issue would appear to be that on every driver install, the s-video output is being selected as primary and DVI ignored, even when there is nothing plugged in. >< I've just reformatted after enduring months of this hoping to just get rid of this issue, but alas, I go and install 175.16 or 175.80 on my fresh vista install and I loose signal again upon reboot. No solutions as of yet on the nvidia forum (unplugging and plugging the DVI cable back in after boot seems to have worked for some as a temp fix, not for me however). Another odd thing I noticed too, is that the driver believes I have 2 displays. Both in device manager (One Generic PNP and one non-pnp listed) and in the nvidia cp there is my CMV 22 and a non-existant 'HDTV' in the multiple display setup page. Now the odd thing is, if I set it to dualview, then back to single, then back to dual for a 2nd time, it quickly reverts back to single-display mode, and the HDTV is gone from the list and only generic PNP shows up in device manager! However, on reboot it re-appears. Just wondering if ANYONE here has had this issue or has a solution? Getting extremely desperate, and dragging my compy over to TV in other room after every. single. driver update is getting horribly annoying. Thanks
This odd little bug keeps resurfacing and the only documented solution is to turn off the computer, switch the DVI cable to the other DVI plug on the back of the video card and reboot. The bug seems to originate from within the portion of the Windows registry where the hardware information is stored about displays. Somehow, of the three output video ports, Windows is "telling" the nVidia driver installation routine to use the "wrong" video port, even though the single monitor is connected elsewhere. You could try going into the Windows Control Panel Device Manager and turn on the option for "show hidden devices". See if you have multiple monitors listed. Try uninstalling all of them (including your existing monitor) and rebooting. Note. I'm just guessing at this workaround, so try it as your own risk. Uninstalling the monitor device should not have any bad effects, but since you are already having problems, there is a possibility that doing so might make your problem worse.
This used to happen to me (same exact problem same exact way) using DVI only , VGA worked fine , I have a Viewsonic VX2025wm. I had to find and use a program called Powerstrip to insert an EDID flash someone made for my monitor , I do NOT pretend to know how or why this worked but it did , my monitor now works flawlessly with Vista , ANY driver version and DVI. there are a few threads in both this forum and the Nvidia user forums on this subject , it was there that I got help and finally solved my problem. I contacted Vewsonic and they told me that my monitor did not support vista and they would not be fixing it....so I gave the powerstrip/EDID thing a try. Not sure if this will help but Good luck to ya anyways.
Well VGA fails for me sadly, seems to just be defaulting to s-video. Heard about the EDID thing on the nvidia forums, though it seemed rather risky, whole prospect of killing the monitor, so I tried to avoid it, guess I have no choice now.... Also tried uninstalling displays from device manager before, but both the real and non-existent return upon reboot/refresh of list, (though as mentioned I can make the fake disappear until next boot through the odd dualview thing).
Well, tried to give it a go with powerstrip, managed to get my EDID info out of registry, but alas seems my monitor doesn't support DDC/Doesn't have an EEPROM/any EDID built in, which may be the problem too I suppose. :/ Sigh, nothing I can do but wait for nvidia to undo whatever changes they made to their drivers that causes them to do this.
man that sucks , I feel for ya bro. Truthfully though I don't think Nvidia is interested in fixing it at all , there is a thread over there at their forums thats got to be 75 or 80 pages long and its been there for about a year , I am glad the Powerstrip thing worked for me , I just could not afford another monitor at this time.
After reading Firefox_1's original post I thought, too, that it has to be a problem with the registry, since it's storing the user profile. Just an idea: Why don't you look for the registry key(s) that changes when it's working, save the key(s) as a *.reg file and use Task Scheduler to run it every time Windows boots? You would also have to make sure that it's applied after everything else is done loading.
Hmmm, seems like it's worth a try. Anyone know which keys control which display/s in nvidia cp/windows display properties is set to primary? Edit: Well, found HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\DISPLAY\Default_Monitor, will back it up and make it run upon reboot next time I install a driver, woo.
I have the same problem,have to start w/VGA and DVI monitor both hooked up and switch over while they are both on,175.16,and 175.51 WHQL.This is getting old....Vista 32 sp1 and Win Xp sp3.
