Video adapter issues.

I was hoping someone could give me some advice on this. My computer has been acting up when i play PC games. When I exit fear combat, the screen stays black, with the taskbar kinda outlined and some areas that are purple and scrambled. And lately it's been crashing ever so often. When playing Sims2, a message popped up saying I had no video adapter... and another error message while playing sims2 was that I didn't have a compatable video adapter, that it was for an earlier version of windows, and that it had to switch back to windows default. I did the windows update, I updated directX, updated my videocard drivers and still nothing. I've checked everything I can think of, any ideas?

Computer specs
MSI 915P COMBO F motherboard
1GB corsair PC4200 DDR2
ViewSonic VX924 19"
pentium 4 CPU 630
Nvidia 6800 (latest drivers)

Try removing completely the video card drivers by changing the driver to that of a simple VGA display adapter, restart and then change it back to your new drivers.

Quick question here, DAZ ...

When you did the Windows Updates, was there a hardware update included for your video adapter? The reason I ask is that I've seen Many times where the Hardware updates from Windows ( especially for video adapters) are often times incorrectly detected. Everthing seems fine and the updates are completed, yet when you restart the video reverts back to a default VGA due to an incorrect driver from Microsux.

I'd suggest doing as ArMap mentions. Go into Control Panel Add/Remove and get rid of Any video drivers, Nvidia or otherwise. Then go to Device Manager and "uninstall" Any existing video adapters showing. Restart your PC. When it boots up and prompts you install the drivers for your video adapter, just hit cancel. Now, run the installation program for the latest drivers from Nvidia's website . Once that has completed, Restart your PC.

If you're still having problems, let us know.

Just a reminder:
To avoid these types of issues in the future don't use the video hardware drivers "detected" by Windows Update, just stick with those available from the manufacturer's website ... in this case Nvidia.

Hope this helps.


[edit on 10/28/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

I don't use microsoft update for my videocard drivers, I only use the ones from the official nvidia site. I think it may be windowblinds, I turned it off and will see how that goes. I tried completely uninstalling the drivers and then reinstalling them so I'll see how that goes to. Thanks for the assistance, I'll update in a few days.

One thing to take into consideration is when installing and uninstalling drivers, even from the same manufacturer, you can create issues. The files are named the same and will just add the new information into the existing files, sometimes causing problems. Even when uninstalling they are still there. I would suggest you download a little program called DriverCleaner Pro. When you open it, add the names of the manufacturer in the clean side and hit go. If you have an nvidia graffix card, and nforce chipset, make sure to not remove your chipset drivers. Vid only.

almost forgot about the radeon chipset. Same thing here to. if you use ATI Graffix(the worst for driver issues, but i still love em, always have) and the radeon chipset for your board, be careful not to remove your chipset drivers, Vid Only.

Good advice from 12m8keall2c and armap. Windowblinds has had problems conflicting with the xp themes on certain systems. Let us know how it goes without it.

Good luck

So far, no problems at all... so I dunno what to think. I've had problems with windowblinds in the past (drops my fps in several games and crashes Fable) but it makes the interface so much more comfortable. (dark colors). But completely removing the graphics card drivers and reinstalling didn't make that much of an impact. The computer freaked out before when my sister was using MSN messenger to, so it's not just for games. I'm gonna try unloading windowblinds before every game and see if that's good enough. I really appreciate all the help. Thanks folks.