Problem with new video card

System Specs:

Athlon XP 2200+
Shuttle MN31N MOBO w/NVIDIA nForce 2 chipset
640MB DDR400 RAM
Windows XP Pro W/SP2
160GB IDE Western Digital HDD

Last week I installed a new 160GB HDD, along with a brand new NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 video card w/128MB of DDR. I performed a fresh install of XP Pro w/SP2 slipstreamed into it. No hiccups during install.

Everything seemed to be great...my desktop looks fantastic. I'm not really a 'gamer', but I have no problems playing several N64 & Neo-Geo emulated games. Pictures look fine, perfect resolution.

My issue is any video file I play (MGP, AVI, DivX, DVD, etc) only appears to be about 8 colours (primarily yellow & red) and the resolution is horrible! It's as if I were playing it with the windows default VGA drivers or something. It doesn't matter what program I'm viewing with (Media Player, Jet Audio, PowerDVD, etc).

The original XP drivers for the card were dated circa 2004, so I loaded the drivers which came with the card, which brought them up to July 2005, no change. I downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers here at Major Geeks and installed them, they now show Nov 11/05...still no change. I downloaded & installed the latest motherboard chipset drivers (NVIDIA N-Force 2), with no change.

I'm not sure what to do next. I've checked for firmware updates for the card through the 'Live Update' utility which came with the card. It reports I'm using the latest firmware. I also have the latest BIOS for my MOBO.

If I remove the card & use the integrated video on the MOBO, everything works fine, movies are perfect.

I'm hoping someone out there is a much bigger geek than I am, and can give me a few more suggestions. Thanks for reading...I know I'm long winded.

 

Exchange your video card there might be something wrong with it.

 

Well, I gave the place I bought it from a call. They seem to think they've seen it before...they're just discussing it & trying to remember what the solution was. They're supposed to give me a call back. I'll update when they do.

 

The local computer store tech was convinced it was some sort of codec issue (which I doubted, since I assume more than one codec is used between viewing dixv, DVD & MPG files). But, I took his advice & removed the exisiting codecs & then replaced them by installing the "k-lite full" codec pack from here on MajorGeeks. Sigh...still horrible video playback.

 

All fixed! I found a fellow in a Motorola radio forum of all places that had the answer. It's apparently not uncommon for the FX5200 & FX5700 series. I figured I'd post it here in case someone else runs into this issue.

In the "colour correction settings" screen:

"You have to select ALL and ALL Channels in the top two drop box's and the bottom one should be standard.

If Restore Defaults button is still greyed out then just move one of the sliders a bit and it will come up as available. Click Restore Defaults then Apply.

Then on that same screen with it still set to All and All Channels set the bottom to Advanced instead of Standard and do the same thing, Restore Defaults. Reboot & all should be ok."

And it was.

 

Glad you found a solution.