NVIDIA Video Card Problem

Good afternoon everyone. I have searched and searched for a solution to my problem but none of the solutions I've found have worked. I am hoping that providing more information might help solve this once and for all.

I am running a computer that my brother built for me so there is no brand name but it has an AMD Athlon 2700+ processor. I am running Windows XP Pro SP2. My video card is an NVIDIA GEForce4 MX 4000. Here is my problem:

I removed one of my extra HDDs from the computer yesterday to use in another computer that I'm trying to fix. After removing the HDD, my monitor would not display anything after the Windows splash screen. I am able to boot the computer in safe mode and also in VGA.

If I uninstall the video card, I am able to start Windows normally. It prompts me to install the driver for the new device (my video card) but, depending on how I install it, one of two things happen. If I use the NVIDIA installer, it starts to work and then part way through I get this black screen filled with hundreds of white smiley faces (picture attatched) and the monitor goes black. If I do the install through the "found new hardware" wizard, it seems to work but then I still get the blank screen after restart and I'm back at square one (actually, just tried it again and got the smilies).

In VGA mode, Windows starts up with the display set at the lowest setting. When I try to change it I, again, get the smiley face screen.

I am pretty sure this all has to do with my video card driver but I am out of ideas on what to try short of getting a new card.

Anyone have any ideas? Help!

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major
You didn't mention which driver you're using, but the newest one from NVidia for that series of card is version 93.71. You can download it from this link. I'm not too sure if removing the hard drive has anything to do with the issue you're having, but I would say the card is probably failing and it may just be coincidence that this happened right when the drive was removed. Here's my suggestion: remove the video card and use on-board video if possible, or use a different video card if possible. If you must use the NVidia card, so be it. Follow the steps in this guide to completely clean all traces of your NVidia drivers. If you have to do it in Safe Mode, I suppose that's OK, and may even be preferable. Once the drivers are removed, and upon rebooting with the NVidia card installed, the Hardware Wizard will prompt for drivers (I think XP has built-in drivers for the MX4 series, it is an old card) so cancel it if possible. Download the drivers I linked to above but do NOT install 'em by double clicking on the downloaded file. Extract it with TUGzip. TUGzip can extract RAR files, ZIP files, 7zip files, many EXE files, and just about any archive or self-extracting archive you're likely to encounter. When installing TUGzip just click 'Next' all the way through. At the end of the install, there will be a little check-box for "Launch TUGzip"; go ahead and launch it; click "Next" all the way through again until you see a "Finish" button; there will be a column on the left side with a bunch of different archive formats; click the "Select All" button; click "Finish". A window will open that looks like an Explorer-type window, close it. Right click the file you downloaded (the file you want to extract) and click the 2nd upward pointing green arrow, it will say something like "Extract to: .\filename" and the file will extract to a folder of the same name. Then follow the steps in this thread to install the driver, starting with step 1. In steps 6 and 7 you'd point to the extracted NVidia driver you downloaded earlier.... hopefully that will work. You can also try running Video Memory Stress Test and/or Video Card Stability Test to check the card for possible hardware failures or problems.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
:-D

 

EDIT- I was just thinking.... maybe the card was knocked loose whilst the hard drive was being removed? If the card has a cooling fan, is it freely and easily spinning? Is the card and heatsink(s) clean with no dust and debris built up?

(I tried to add this to my above post but I waited too long rolleyes )

 

Well, I did what you said and after the driver installed I got those stupid "smiley faces of death" as I will now call them. I breathed another frustrated sigh and turned off the computer, took out my video card and removed the small bit of dust that was on it and made sure it was securely connected when I put it back in...

IT WORKS! :celebrate

I'm not sure which thing did it (I will lead myself to believe that it was the more complicated driver issue since the simple cleaning solution will make me feel dumb--LOL) but one of those two things did it. Thank you so so much for taking the time to help me! :clap

 

:highfive Glad to hear all is well!! And I'm always happy to help....
:-D

[dlb]