Graphics card problems, GTX-285

So, this evening's gaming didn't get off to a good start ... If anyone could give me some pointers to troubleshoot this I'd really appreciate it ...

Upon starting the PC I noticed that the BIOS screen wasn't stretched widescreen across my monitor, but was instead square with the black borders at each side. Then the monitor complained about no dvi signal right around the time the windows logo should appear (Windows 7). The PC seemed to continue to boot normally, and I tried logging in and watched the disk access light and the machine seemed to log in, but there was no picture.

I restarted and tried safe mode, which worked and gave me a 1024x768 res. I tried a restore point, restarted, and had the same issue. Restarted again, reinstalled the current nVidia drivers from their website, restarted, same issue.

By now I'd tried hooking up my laptop to the monitor, which seemed to work fine. So I went into BIOS and enabled on onboard graphics, and connected the monitor using the motherboard VGA connector. I'm using the computer like that now, and getting the screen's native 2048x1152 resolution, but of course graphics performance is dire.

Tomorrow I'm going to borrow a DVI cable from work just to be sure it's not something dumb like the cable, and I'll try hooking up an iMac to the dvi port to verify the dvi on the display.

With that out the way, I have to suspect something is wrong with the card. It's an nVidia GTX 285 and is I suppose around 3 years old. I was perfectly happy with the performance of it and not really looking to change it out. Is it likely I need a new card?

Don't most of those cards come with two DVI ports? Can you try the other one?

Thanks for replying.

Yes it does have two ports - I tried both with the same result .

That does sound like your graphics card died. Do you have any way of trying it in a different machine just to be sure? Maybe your PSU is old, getting crappy, and not supplying enough power?

I'd be happier if I had got the obvious texture glitches, lines or artefacts because that would be more obviously a card failure. I hadn't considered the power supply - all the LEDs on the card are lit up normally and the fan is spinning away - but I'll look into that, too.

Unfortunately I don't have access to another machine I can put the card into, but I'll give it some thought.

Yeah, seems strange that safe mode resolution will work but not standard desktop resolutions.

The only other thing I can suggest is switching the graphics card to a different slot (if you have another). I don't see how it's power-related as any resolution wouldn't show in that case. I also wanted to make sure that you're just using a DVI-I cable straight into the monitor (and not converting it to VGA first) as it could be that the analogue output on the chipset died (or the other way around) and going into safe mode bypasses this issue by forcing the card to the other option.

That's a good idea on the digital to analog conversion, Duoae. It's a weird problem.

Thanks for helping guys

The connection I was using was dvi from the card direct to the display. I grabbed a spare cable from work to try and it made no difference (I wasn't really expecting it to, but worth a try).

However ...

I also borrowed a DVI to VGA adapter. Connected that from the DVI socket on the graphics card and used a VGA cable from the adapter to the VGA port on the display. Voila - picture. No glitches or artefacts seen, I guess it's a little less sharp for being VGA? Even played some Arkham City and performance seemed normal in the time I played, admitedly not very long but still ...

So now one last obvious thing to check is the DVI connector on the monitor, I guess it could always be that rather than the PC - I'll borrow another computer and see how that goes. The laptop I'd tried previously was VGA, it didn't have DVI.

Interesting!

babakotia wrote:

However ...

I also borrowed a DVI to VGA adapter. Connected that from the DVI socket on the graphics card and used a VGA cable from the adapter to the VGA port on the display. Voila - picture. No glitches or artefacts seen, I guess it's a little less sharp for being VGA? Even played some Arkham City and performance seemed normal in the time I played, admitedly not very long but still ...

So now one last obvious thing to check is the DVI connector on the monitor, I guess it could always be that rather than the PC - I'll borrow another computer and see how that goes. The laptop I'd tried previously was VGA, it didn't have DVI.

I think it's the digital output from the graphics card. It's outputting analogue (VGA) fine but not DVI (digital) and these are usually (at least they used to be when I followed graphics card development and cycles) produced by signals from different chips on the graphics card through the single DVI-I socket.

MS[/url]]The default Microsoft VGA driver is used for display at 640 x 480 resolution and in 16 colors. You must log on in all modes by a domain or by the local Security Accounts Manager, depending on which Safe Boot mode you select.

MS[/url]]After you finish the preceding steps, you computer is using the Vga.sys generic video driver, and this is the same VGA driver that is used in Safe mode.

It could still be the monitor input but from what we're seeing here I would doubt it.

[edit]

Scratch that. Having some time to think about it, it's actually probably more likely an issue with the digital receiver in the monitor.... since DVI-I outputs both analogue and digital signals and in all other cases your VGA socket on the monitor received signals whereas only the safemode VGA through the DVI-I cable worked.

Spoiler:

I'm probably wrong!!

Googling around, it appears that there can be corruption of the monitor's EDID resulting in these exact symptoms. Not sure is attempting to fix is realistic - some people appear to have tried but results seem very mixed. Guess I may just settle on VGA for a while.

babakotia wrote:

Googling around, it appears that there can be corruption of the monitor's EDID resulting in these exact symptoms. Not sure is attempting to fix is realistic - some people appear to have tried but results seem very mixed. Guess I may just settle on VGA for a while.

At least monitors are generally cheaper to replace than a mid-top range graphics card!

Glad you pinpointed the issue and that it's not a complete stop to you using your PC!

Absolutely. Thanks for steering me in the right direction!

Wait - before you give up you might try reading this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread...

They talk about solving NEC monitor problems with "Gefen DVI Detective Plus" and it seems to solve problems by holding the EDID (or something like that). This might help you.

Product Description:

Save the EDID -- for HDTV equipment as well as Computers.

Computers and HDTV video source devices can sometimes lose the EDID -- basically the electronic identification of a display which lists its possible resolutions and frequencies. When displays are switched away or disconnected and then reconnected, the EDID can be lost and the computer or HD video source device can lose the ability to display the image properly.

The Gefen DVI Detective Plus allows you to switch or relocate HDTV or Computer video displays while "tricking" the source devices into continuously reading the display information -- maintaining smooth video operations throughout the process.

How It Works

Prior to first use, the DVI Detective is connected to the Display where it stores the Display's EDID while under power. The power is then removed from the DVI Detective which is placed to the output of your video source. The stored EDID is permanently saved.