Graphic card problem?

Please can someone help?

My graphics card GeForce MX400 64mb AGP was working fine with W98SE. I upgraded to XP Pro and ever since my graphics have been very slow and windows 'redraw' when i drag them about and scroll.

Thought it was a driver problem as MX400 is old and have tried lots of different driver versions (from 28.31 up to 169.21) but I always get the same result. The drivers are installed, the screen goes black and I am left with either a black screen with a flashing cursor (top right) or just a black screen. I try to reboot and get to the same point. I then have to run safe mode to uninstall the drivers and am then back to the redrew problem.

I bought a new GeForce 6200 AGP 256mb today, hoping that the newer card and accompanying driver CD would solve my problems. It doesnt :cry I get the same black screen problems and now don't know what to do.

I am using an old Gigabyte motherboard GA-7IXE, 800mhz processor, 640RAM
(I know, I am buying a new one see New PC - Which one should I buy? to offer help on that one.)

 

Have you installed a new direct X with the drivers?

what version have you now?

start>run>typein
dxdiag

 

640RAM means? You have 640MB of RAM?

 

Yes it's 640MB of RAM.

 

Yes it looks like DirectX9.0c is installed.

I ran dxdiag and it said:

System: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

DirectX files: No problems found.

Display: The system is using the generic video driver. Please install video driver provided by the hardware manufacturer. (every time I install a driver I get the black screen).
DirectDraw test results: All tests were successful.
Direct3D functionality not available. You should verify that the driver is a final version from the hardware manufacturer.

DirectSound test results: All tests were successful.

DirectMusic test results: All tests were successful.
Input: No problems found

Thanks for the reply Studiot. I dont know why I keep get black screens when I install a new driver. It's as if there is something in the driver installation that brings about this black screen. Any advice you can give on this would be appreciated.

 

What memory modules do you have installed to come up with 640MB?

How did you upgrade to Win XP? By installing an upgrade version of Win XP over your old installation of Win 98SE?

What's your regimen for virus protection, spyware removal, disk cleanup, disk defragmentation, and registry cleaning?

What size hard drive does that computer have? How much free space on your OS partition, now that you have Win XP on it?

 

Thanks for the reply usafveteran

What memory modules do you have installed to come up with 640MB?

DIMM 1: 64MB PC100 SDRAM (@125mhz 3.0-3-3-7 @100mhz 2.0-2-2-5)
DIMM 2: 64MB PC100 SDRAM (@125mhz 3.0-3-3-7 @100mhz 2.0-2-2-5)
DIMM 3: 512MB PC133 SDRAM (@133mhz 3.0-3-3-6)

How did you upgrade to Win XP? By installing an upgrade version of Win XP over your old installation of Win 98SE? Yes. I should also that I then uninstalled XP and restored the back up of W98SE so I could back my emails up that hadn't come over to XP, then reinstalled XP. Not 100% sure that this ran 100% smoothly. Should I do the XP upgrade again? Should I wipe it and put XP on fresh?

What's your regimen for virus protection, spyware removal, disk cleanup, disk defragmentation, and registry cleaning? Very good. Regular defrag, spybot etc, don't recall registry cleaning.

What size hard drive does that computer have? 20GB

How much free space on your OS partition, now that you have Win XP on it? 7.03GB free

 

I think that's a good idea. And, I'd install Win XP without installing Win 98SE first. You can do this, even if your Win XP CD is an upgrade version. Just boot from the Win XP CD; it will search for an existing OS to verify you're qualified for the upgrade version of Win XP. At that point, you can remove the Win XP CD and insert your Win 98SE CD in the CD drive just so that the installation procedure can verify the older OS. Then, you can remove Win 98SE, re-insert the Win XP CD and proceed.

 

before you do this save important data somewhere else.

for instance in outlook express export your addressbook. do it as a csv file not any of the fancy microsoft formats you will be offered.

 

Yes, you can save OE messages, address book, email accounts, and even message rules, using different procedures. Your OE messages are .dbx files; copy them to an external media for later transfer back to your hard drive; to find your .dbx files, go to Tools, Options, Maintenance, and click on the Store Folder button. An Email account can be exported to .iaf file; to re-create the account after installing Windows, just import the .iaf file.

 

Thanks usafveteran and studiot. Am just about to back up emails to an external hard drive so that info is very well timed.

Going for the full wipe and install after that! Hopefully that will fix it, fingers crossed.