Black screen with 6800GT and ASRock 939Dual-SATA2

Hi,

I had a perfectly good machine (Asus A7V333, Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM,
Sparkle 6800GT, NVidia 81.85 drivers, Windows XP SP2, Viewsonic VP930 LCD
monitor, etc.) and it ran all my games ok. However, I wanted more speed, so
I swapped the motherboard for an ASROCK 939Dual-SATA2 and the processor for
an Athlon64 3200+. I uninstalled all the VIA drivers for the A7V333
motherboard - AGP, IDE bus master, etc. and rebuilt the machine in a new
case with the same 2 hard drives, DVDROM, DVD R/W, floppy drive and power
supply (Hiper 450W). Everything seemed OK, Windows booted up, it detected
the "new" hardware, I installed the ULi drivers and re-installed the NVidia
drivers.

All seemed to be ok, I could play Doom3 and Quake 4, but when I tried FEAR
or UT2004 or Halo, I'd get the introductory movies and sound, but only a
black screen! With Half Life 2, I got a screen, but it wasn't working
properly, with artifacts in the sky. None of the 3DMark benchmarking suites
will run properly either. Is it just OpenGL applications that are working
ok, and DirectX applications that are not? If so, or even if not, what's
going on? Has anybody else had the same experience and how can I get round
the problem?


Ian

Hi again,

I have solved my own problem! Having read a number of posts in this and
other newsgroups, it looked as though it could be the NVidia drivers that
were at fault. So, I uninstalled the ULi AGP driver again and the 81.95
NVidia drivers, rebooted, re-loaded the ULi AGP driver, re-booted and then
installed the 78.05 NVidia drivers. Success - FEAR now starts OK, I've yet
to test the others, but they should be the same. What's gone wrong in the
8x.xx series drivers, then?

Ian
"Ian" <salsa.tunes[REMOVE FOR REPLY]@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:YpWuf.21421$...
> Hi,
>
> I had a perfectly good machine (Asus A7V333, Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM,
> Sparkle 6800GT, NVidia 81.85 drivers, Windows XP SP2, Viewsonic VP930 LCD
> monitor, etc.) and it ran all my games ok. However, I wanted more speed,
> so
> I swapped the motherboard for an ASROCK 939Dual-SATA2 and the processor
> for
> an Athlon64 3200+. I uninstalled all the VIA drivers for the A7V333
> motherboard - AGP, IDE bus master, etc. and rebuilt the machine in a new
> case with the same 2 hard drives, DVDROM, DVD R/W, floppy drive and power
> supply (Hiper 450W). Everything seemed OK, Windows booted up, it detected
> the "new" hardware, I installed the ULi drivers and re-installed the
> NVidia
> drivers.
>
> All seemed to be ok, I could play Doom3 and Quake 4, but when I tried FEAR
> or UT2004 or Halo, I'd get the introductory movies and sound, but only a
> black screen! With Half Life 2, I got a screen, but it wasn't working
> properly, with artifacts in the sky. None of the 3DMark benchmarking
> suites
> will run properly either. Is it just OpenGL applications that are working
> ok, and DirectX applications that are not? If so, or even if not, what's
> going on? Has anybody else had the same experience and how can I get
> round
> the problem?
>
>
> Ian
>

My AsRock+6800 Ultra are working fine with the 81.x drivers - I even
took a VIA machine install and moved it over just like you did. I did
go ahead and do a repair install of Windows, though (not without a
backup image of the system drive - the same procedure failed moving my
'work' system over to the old gaming m/b)
Did you use the chipset drivers from ULi? I heard there were problems
with the AsRock ones.
I started with 81.95 and now have 81.98 running - both worked great.

Good luck,
Kendt

Hi Kendt,

Glad to hear you're doing fine with the 81.x drivers. I did use the ULi
chipset drivers (integrated v 2.13)- read the same messages as you about the
uncertainty in using the ASRock ones.

It could be that my eventual success in getting rid of the problem was to do
with the process of uninstalling both the ULI AGP driver and the NVidia
drivers, and then re-installing in the right order with re-boots in-between.
Seems a bit like black magic to me; I am a scientist though and like to
understand what's going on! When I'm feeling brave I might try the 81.xx
drivers again, but only with a system restore in hand in case things go bad
again!

Thanks

Ian

<> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> My AsRock+6800 Ultra are working fine with the 81.x drivers - I even
> took a VIA machine install and moved it over just like you did. I did
> go ahead and do a repair install of Windows, though (not without a
> backup image of the system drive - the same procedure failed moving my
> 'work' system over to the old gaming m/b)
> Did you use the chipset drivers from ULi? I heard there were problems
> with the AsRock ones.
> I started with 81.95 and now have 81.98 running - both worked great.
>
> Good luck,
> Kendt
>

Update - it doesn't look as though the problem was with the Nvidia drivers
after all. I have installed version 82.12 with no black screen problem. It
looks as though the order in which you instal the Uli AGP driver and the
Nvidia drivers is crucial. Hope this helps somebody else!

Ian

"Ian" <salsa.tunes[REMOVE FOR REPLY]@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:xQZuf.23289$...
> Hi Kendt,
>
> Glad to hear you're doing fine with the 81.x drivers. I did use the ULi
> chipset drivers (integrated v 2.13)- read the same messages as you about
> the uncertainty in using the ASRock ones.
>
> It could be that my eventual success in getting rid of the problem was to
> do with the process of uninstalling both the ULI AGP driver and the NVidia
> drivers, and then re-installing in the right order with re-boots
> in-between. Seems a bit like black magic to me; I am a scientist though
> and like to understand what's going on! When I'm feeling brave I might
> try the 81.xx drivers again, but only with a system restore in hand in
> case things go bad again!
>
> Thanks
>
> Ian
>
> <> wrote in message
> news: oups.com...
>> My AsRock+6800 Ultra are working fine with the 81.x drivers - I even
>> took a VIA machine install and moved it over just like you did. I did
>> go ahead and do a repair install of Windows, though (not without a
>> backup image of the system drive - the same procedure failed moving my
>> 'work' system over to the old gaming m/b)
>> Did you use the chipset drivers from ULi? I heard there were problems
>> with the AsRock ones.
>> I started with 81.95 and now have 81.98 running - both worked great.
>>
>> Good luck,
>> Kendt
>>
>
>