Looking for help with a wierd problem

[Localan]

Here it is:

I built a computer for a friend and sent him down the road. Components are:

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
XP 2600+ w/ stock heatsink
old Geforce 4 MX 420 64 MB PCI Video card
Antec 2600 case
160 GB Hitachi Hard Drive
Old TDK CD Burner
Old DVD Drive
Win XP Home w/ SP2
nVidia 4.37 chipset drivers
nVidia 61.77 video card drivers

And here is the problem. I assembled this and installed everything at my house, where I have a spare monitor (OLD Dell 15" UltraSharp that can do 1280x1024 @ 60 Hz) that I use just for this purpose. Everything went fine until he got home, where he uses a 17" NEC FE700 monitor. When he hooked it up, it would display the dos bootup screens, but once it got to the Windows Logo screen, the monitor goes to standby. Windows still loads, as I can click around and hear sounds as it logs in. The only way to get video back is to boot into safe mode and uninstall the video card then reboot and let it ONLY use the generic drivers. This makes it scroll like crap though it will allow the resolution he likes.

At this point I can reboot and reinstall the nVidia display drivers and it looks and acts fine until I try to reboot using them, when it will go to standby again and not recover out. If I hot-swap my monitor onto it at this point, then mine will not work either. If I reboot with his attached, then it will always fail, but If I reboot with mine attached then it is fine. If I reboot with mine on and let it get it into windows, then I can hotswap his monitor on and it runs fine.

So far I have tried swapping the vid card to a spare 5200 that I have, and it does the exact same thing. I have tried at various combinations of resolution, color depth, and frequency that are available to be used. I am sure that I have the latest drivers and Mobo BIOS. I guess my question is; 'Does anyone know of any conflicts with this board/vid card combo that might cause these issues?"

Any more suggestions for me?

Thanks in advance.

<----Thanks xENo

 

[Chazums]

erm, maybe it needs monitor drivers.
very wierd.

what about the the BIOS setting for using VGA or AGP first?

 

[milling_hordesman]

you know what? it's weird that you mention that, because while i was putting together my brother's gf's computer last month, the same thing happened to me with the mx 460. when booting with generic drivers, it worked fine, but with the latest drivers it would go into standby just before/while hitting the windows loading screen.

i thought at the time that it might be because my bro had damaged the hardware (he must have at some point; getting funny vertical lines in DOS/BIOS, but they seemed to go away in windows). if you do get an answer for this, tell me so i can reinstall that card and get the gf2 gts out of there )

 

[Localan]

erm, maybe it needs monitor drivers.
very wierd.

what about the the BIOS setting for using VGA or AGP first?

I have tried using specific monitor drivers for the NEC to no avail. I used them in order to make sure that I could check the box to "Only display resolutions and frequencies that this monitor can handle".

I never found specific drivers for the circa 1999 Dell, but it is the one that runs flawlessly. I have checked to make sure that it is initializing the PCI slot first when I use that video card and vice-versa for the AGP card.

Oh and milling_hordesman, i would tend to think that the GF2 GTS card might actually be as fast or faster than your mx460 anyway. Probably not though.

I did go back and use drivercleaner to scrub off the 61.77s and reverted back to one of the 5x.xx release drivers. Same problem.

Anyone else?

<----- thanks xENo!

 

[milling_hordesman]

i read a thread in some random forum that it might be a problem with AGP drivers. perhaps there are new ones that need installing before they'll work right.

and the gf2 GTS as fast as the mx460? well, not in my experience, but then it could have been the placebo effect, as i wan't really into benchmarking at the time.