Sordes

Ok I will explain from the start and try and cover everything I have done to fix the problem.

First off my basic system specs:

MSI VIA km4m-V motherboard (Via km400 + 8237 chipset)
Athlon XP 2200+
1gb pc3200 ramm
Geforce FX 5200 128mb vid card (old I know, but does it's job decently for me)
Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 sound card

Now basically I ran across a virus (this virus did not effect my graphics in any way) and decided to reformat my system. The quickest easiest fix. I deleted all partitions then created a new partition and installed XP Pro w/SP2 (was previousley running an oem of home edition w/sp1 updated to current through winupdate).

When I did this I used autopatcher april full, with may and june updates to do my windows updates offline. To avoid any vulnerabilities and things that could cause me to just reformat again before being able to install the needed critical fixes from MS.

After that was all done I proceeded to install all my drivers. The very last driver I installed was the nVidia Forceware 91.31 official release. Upon restarting after doing this at the WinXP loading screen my screen went blank a second then stretched/flickered (best I can really describe it) and went back to normal. Almost as if I had the card set to one refresh rate and the monitor to another or it was changing between resolutions. Which I checked the refresh rates and they are the same in nView and it was not the case.

When I reached my desktop everything seemed just fine. But when I open the nview control panel either from the icon running in the notification area or by right-clicking the desktop and choosing nVidia Display it also does this, and will do it usually twice before returning back to normal and bringing up the nView CP.

Now I figured that since I have an older card, I should just uinstall the 91.31 and go dl the drivers I had previousley before this reformat. So that is what I did, I uninstalled through add/remove progs, and double checked it in device manager after doing so. Once that was uninstalled I restarted in safe mode and ran Driver Cleaner Pro to make sure no files concerning that driver were still apparent on the HDD. Then proceeded to install the 84.32 forceware drivers which have worked very well on my system for some time now.

This did not fix it. So I basically went through a list of things to check. I updated my chipset drivers for my motherboard. I checked my AGP settings in my bios. I disabled anything to do with using multiple displays or the nview options that I could disable. Made sure my monitor and gfx card were set to the same refresh rate. Nothing seemed to fix it. I then did the same process to uninstall the 84.32 and reverted to the 84.21 drivers. Same problem still.

So I decided that perhaps it was possibly XP Pro. So I reformatted again, completely deleting all partitions and doing a fresh install of XP HOME Edition this time. Again I used autopatcher, with home it's even more vulnerable because my version is older, and followed my same normal process. This time I only installed the 84.21 forceware drivers and upon restarting after that I had the same exact problems as I did before. Again I tweaked and checked many things, and double checked again to make sure nothing was different. Still the same problem.

After another hour or so of this I decided to reformat one more time. Again I deleted all partitions, fresh install etc. etc. This time I did NOT use autopatcher. I used only the official windows update from MS. Followed the same afore mentioned procedures and installed the 84.21 drivers.

This is the stage I am currently at right now and it is still giving me the same problems. As stated I have updated mobo chipset drivers, checked my agp bios settings, uinstalled drivers, used driver cleaner pro in safe mode, reinstalled older drivers, turned all nview CP options off concering multi displays and the like.

Nothing seems to work at all. Ever since I installed the 91.31 drivers I have had this problem and only since. I do not understand it and cannot think of anything else I can do. My gfx card bios is unchanged, but I do not know if I would want to flash that and risk ruining my card. Nor do I see any reason why that would be effected by this.

Oh btw, there is more problems than just the screen flicker/stretching or however to describe it. I play EQ2, and the game loads to a black screen. I have to go to a window then back to fullscreen to see anything at all. And then particle effects seem a tad messed up and i'm seeing green and red markers on the ground which I am not supposed to see. I messed with and tweaked the gfx settings for the game quite a bit, I can get it to a tolerable point. But no where near what it should be or was previousley. I usually play with things pretty low (that is an old vid card and this is not a super machine by any means) and i have tried everything from lowest settings to extremely high settings.

I am basically stumped and baffled. I cannot think of anything else to try concerning this. And I dont' want to go buy a new vid card because A: I can't really afford one, and B: the card seems to work, just not the way it should be working.

I think the 91.31 drivers have to have had something to do with this. Because it's the only major alteration concering the gfx card that has occured. I realize this is a long post. But I wanted to cover everything I have done to try and fix this problem, and explain the problem itself as thouroghly as I possibly could.

Any suggestions, criticisms or help anyone can offer is greatly appreciated. Cause I love my EQ2, and i'm not a person with a lot of money to throw around. And currently i'm not really able to play without some rather disturbing graphics glitches. I assume the problem is hardware related, but I do not want to go buy a new card or monitor perhaps, if that is not the problem.

Thank you ahead of time to anyone that takes the time to read this and attempts to help me out.

dai

after deleting the drivers
boot into vga mode
disable a/virus
then install your drivers and reboot
you are better off installing the updates from windows update

Sordes

Thank you for the reply. I tried that and still getting the same problems. I have done some tweaking and messing around, and I got the visible glitches out of EQ2. Though my screen is still doing this odd flickering.

At this point I think I have a piece of faulty hardware, that being either the gpu or my monitor. I have ordered a cheap, but better, gpu that should be here within 4-5 days.

If that does not fix it, I will be saving up and putting a new monitor on layaway or something. With everything that I have tried, and the suggestion you gave, as well as some others I have tried from other sources i'm just about positive that this is a hardware problem.

So hopefully the new gpu will fix it, and if not I will be working on picking up a new monitor. I do have a spare here, but it is very tiny so i'm going to avoid using that for right now.

Again thank you for the reply.

ebackhus

My 6800GT would do that as well. I recommend going to www.nvidia.com and getting the older 84.21 drivers. The 91.xx drivers have more bugs than an MS operating system.

dai

for the flickering try increasing the refresh rate on the monitor