Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

New Graphics Card = Monitor Shutdowns

Sep 5, 2004 3:53PM PDT

Hi All,

I just installed a Nvidia 5600FX card into my K7N420 Pro motherboard (nVIDIA nForce 420D Chipset) and get spontaneous monitor shutdowns (eg the 19" NEC Multisync 95 monitor goes into 'standby mode' LED goes from green to orange). There does not seem to be any pattern to these episodes, sometimes it happens imediately after I boot WIN XP PRO, othertimes I can play 5 minutes of Battlefield 1942 or another game before it happens, and sometimes I can use windows for over an hour. When the monitor shuts down the computer does not respond (eg to Ctrl-alt-del and the HDD does not respond to pushing the windows button although sometimes the game music will continue). Occasionally the computer will reboot. Up till now I have been using onboard video with no problems.

I have tried reinstalling Windows XP PRO, updating all relevant drivers (i.e. Motherboard chipset, Video Card, Monitor) to no avail. I have 3 256 DDR RAM sticks in the DIMMS, 385 WATT power supply. The card has also run ok in other machines.

Your help is apprechiated.

Chris

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re: New Graphics Card = Monitor Shutdowns
Sep 5, 2004 4:13PM PDT

After reading another string I should add that I have turned off the onboard video in the Bios.

- Collapse -
(NT) (NT) Take a look at Event Viewer for clues.
Sep 6, 2004 12:28AM PDT
- Collapse -
Have you visited the vendor's website?
Sep 6, 2004 5:47AM PDT

I recently purchased an FX5900 XT. The drivers disk was cracked, I figured, no big deal, being an NVidia based card, I'll just install the latest drivers that I keep in my drivers archives. Strangely, I got that "unsigned driver" message. Went to Chaintech, the maker of the card, and the latest driver version posted was ver. 60.85. After some googling, I found some other people with the same prob. Found the 60.85 drivers, and I was good to go.

Did you happen to have an ATI card before the new one? Could be some old drivers leftover. Maybe a trip into safe mode>Device manager, then remove ALL entries of video adapters, then upon normal reboot, install the NVidia drivers.

Does this card require power? On the side of my card there's a molex for a power supply. All I can think of, good luck.

- Collapse -
Re: New Graphics Card = Monitor Shutdowns
Sep 10, 2004 3:34AM PDT

Have you tried the Videocard in another system? See if it happens there too
Update to the latest drivers, i believe its at 61.77 at this point in time, also make sure DirectX is up to date
Good Luck

- Collapse -
Re: New Graphics Card = Monitor Shutdowns
Sep 10, 2004 3:58AM PDT

Nvidia video cards come packaged with an Installation CD, did you install your video card using the CD? Check Microsoft for updates, they have a patch for Nvidia video cards. SOme games are not compatible with specific models of video cards. Sometimes it helps to read the readme.txt together with the game, it is there for a purpose.