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Display Driver Problem

post #1 of 29
7/14/05 at 1:46pm
Thread Starter 
I RMA's my notebook for stuttering during 3d games and other problems and was told that the tech patched the sodder of the card. My harddrive was also replaced and when I reinstalled windows and all my drivers including the new Omega's based on Catayst 5.6 the Windows boot screen comes up but then once it goes away it is just black. I think it might have windows loaded on the computer because I hear the sound of the popup of the windows security center coming up but hitting Cntrl Alt Del does not produce results and I have to turn off the computer and reboot and shut off during start up again to get to safe mode where if I disable the video driver windows will load. I have .NET framework 2.0 but the problem still exists. I currently am running Omega 2.5.4.4 which work fine but I would like to upgrade. Can anyone help me.
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post #2 of 29
7/15/05 at 11:15am
Boot in safe mode remove the video drivers and use the ait clean driver utility. It will then boot with the generic driver. It's the Cat driver causing the blank screen.
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post #3 of 29
7/18/05 at 12:25am
I just did get my 8790 from RMA too, and I had this same problem. However, after Windows loaded the generic driver, I installed Sager's latest stock driver. Now, I can't play any game that utilizes Direct3d. BF: Vietnam won't start up (CTD), BF2 won't start up, the Halo demo won't work (it actually leaves a message saying that it couldn't start direct 3d or something like that). Any advice? I don't know how to reinstall directx, and I didn't think that you could. Is there anything I can do before I reinstall Windows XP?

EDIT: If I install any of the omega drivers, it simply produces the black screen on boot up, before I can log into WinXP.
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post #4 of 29
7/18/05 at 1:58am
Thread Starter 
I believe I have finally fixed the problem and mine had to do with not having the .NET Framework and also having a beta version of SP2 that had Directx 9.0b installed but would not allow directx 9.0c to be installed. I had to reinstall a new version of windows with SP2 that included directx 9.0c then download framework version 1.1 and then the patch for it then I could install the Cataylst 5.7's which are now working so I believe the Omega's would work as well. My recommendation to avoid reinstalling windows is to update the .NET framework and see if that will solve your problem, also update your directx if possible.
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post #5 of 29
7/18/05 at 4:42am
Thread Starter 
I spoke too soon. The cataylst's installed fine and worked for windows but when I tried to play GTA or Battelfield 2 it would flash a screen as though changing resolution for the game for a second but then exit to the desktop for GTA and similar for BF2 except it kept cycling between them and I had to slow the computer down by holding cntrl alt del and finally closing the non-responding BF2. I then uninstalled CCC and installed the omega 5.6's and got the same problem of after windows xp boot screen a black desktop. I know it is not because of old drivers because I have done a complete reformat before and installed just the omega 5.6's and got the same black screen problem. I am wondering if the problem is the new BIOS that Sager flashed our notebook's with at the RMA. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this problem please let me know. Until then I am going to try and use an old Omega driver to play games.
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post #6 of 29
7/18/05 at 4:59am
Thread Starter 
Even reverting to the old Omega's I had before I RMA's that let me play GTA produce the same starts the game then switches resolutions and eventully exits back to the desktop. The first time it locked my display in a lower resoultion then when I attempted to switch back multires said the native 1680x1050 was not supported so I disabled VPU recovery and this allowed me to switch back but the game would still not load and exited back to the desptop. Is this a BIOS problem or something wrong with the fixed graphics card?
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post #7 of 29
7/18/05 at 10:16am
Yikes. I wonder what is going on here. I can play BF1942 fine. I can also run 3dmark 2003 (well, I only ran the first test and then voluntarily quit). But, 3dmark 2005 will only run the first test before it decides to crash. I thinking that this is a software issue... Since the ram in the video card has been switched out, surely the card should continue to function. Why will certain things run fine? And yet, omega's drivers won't even begin to work. Once the video driver is loaded in the boot sequence, the screen goes blank. Not just black - It is cutting off completely.

And oh, I have directx 9.0c and .Net all updated.
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post #8 of 29
7/18/05 at 1:59pm
Thread Starter 
My screen also goes blank after the boot sequence much as if I had multiple drivers installed but this cannot be the case as I reformated the entire C drive so all old drivers would be gone. My video card had the sodder "patched" so I was weary if that was the problem but if others are having it I assume it is a software problem. I am going to contact sager and see if they have any advice or if it is the new bios version that they put on the notebooks.
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post #9 of 29
7/19/05 at 1:49am
AH HAH! I think I have discovered the issue to our problem. For whatever reason, our laptop screens do not support any resolution at a refresh rate lower than 75hz. SO, for example, in BF2, edit the video con file to be set at 75hz.

Of course, I didn't discover this until I had reinstalled windows....
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post #10 of 29
7/19/05 at 5:51am
Thread Starter 
You are correct that the problem seems to be a refresh rate and I am curious why now the moniter cannot support below 75 Hz refresh rate when I remember before it could use 60 Hz which is the default for many games. The solution I used was to open dxdiag via the run command in windows then go to the "more help" tab, then click "Override" and set the value to 75 Hz, this allowed me to play BF2 but would not work with GTA because that game does not support more then 60 Hz. Can someone please tell me why the laptop will not longer support 60 Hz? Do I have to install a display driver for the screen other then the graphics card? Please let me know if anyone has advise as this "fix" is not acceptable in the long run.
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post #11 of 29
7/19/05 at 6:20am
Thread Starter 
I also was finally able to install the new Omega's but had to use a utility found here http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rl/ to force the refresh rate to be 75 Hz then once windows finally loaded I could switch the desktop to 75 Hz so that it would work fine on subsequent boots.
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post #12 of 29
7/19/05 at 11:02am
Thanks for the link for Omega's, because I had no clue how I was going to install his drivers. I have sent David an email at Sager asking about how to fix this problem, becuase of the fact that 60hz is used by so many different programs as a default. I assume that 60hz is the industry standard - becuase it seems that every game (or many games, rather) start up in 60hz.

Obviously our laptops can handle that refresh rate, or they wouldn't have worked before. I'm betting that the VBIOS is the issue. I'm curious - when my POST data shows, it now lists a VBIOS with a date at the end, something like 2005/06/03. Does yours show the same thing?
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post #13 of 29
7/19/05 at 11:07am
One more question - When you used that program to force the refresh rate, did you set the refresh rate in safe mode? Or were you guessing in the dark what to click / tab to?

I also gave David the link to this thread as a reference. He said in an earlier email that no one had described this problem before.
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post #14 of 29
7/19/05 at 11:59am
Thread Starter 
I used the program to force the refresh rate in safemode and there is an option to force the refresh rate on boot so I had to set it for 800X600 75Hz on boot then installed the Omega's and it booted and worked so then I reset windows to 1680X1050 with 75 Hz so now I no longer need the program to boot.

My VBIOS version is ver 008.017M.097.000-2004/06/03 the same as yours and also a version that seems newer then other posts of the newest VBIOS so I am guessing that this is the problem. My regular BIOS version is 1.00.10 if that has anything to do with the problem either. Please post what David says about the problem and let me know if you get a new VBIOS version.
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post #15 of 29
7/19/05 at 12:51pm
Will do... Thanks for the info.
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post #16 of 29
7/20/05 at 4:48pm
Hey guys, I am experiencing the exact same problem. After my RMA, on bootup the screen simply turns off. I've experimented with various drivers and found that some old Omegas worked (i think based on Cat 4.5 or some other ancient version) and the official Cat 5.7 also worked (but did not support widescreen resolution). In any case, I tried using the utility linked to above, but have not been able to get things going... I was wondering if you could give me more detailed info on what you did to get up and working. Exactly what setting did you use in Refresh Lock? Did you have any drivers installed when you used it? Any more detailed info you can give me would be very much appreciated. Thanks!
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post #17 of 29
7/20/05 at 5:21pm
Nevermind, got it working myself. The problem I was having seems to be because I had drivers installed already when I used RefreshLock. Uninstalling and reinstalling did the trick.
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post #18 of 29
7/20/05 at 5:24pm
Thread Starter 
I uninstalled all of my drivers in safemode via the driver cleaner then rebooted in safemode. I then installed the newest Omega's and rebooted into safemode again. From there I used the refresh lock utility to lock to 800X600 at 75 Hz and then in the program menu "tools">>"advanced settings" then select the box "run this program on boot" I then rebooted in normal mode and instead of the blank screen it loads in an awful 8 bit 800X600 screen but from there you can go to windows and set the desktop to 1680X1050 at 32 bits and it should automaticly be at 75 Hz but you can check that to make sure. After doing this you do not need to use the Refreshlock program anymore. Also to fix some games set the force refresh rate for directdraw in the dxdiag utlitlity as described earlier in the thread. Lets hope Sager fixes the VBIOS as this fix is not acceptable as many games will still not run.
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post #19 of 29
7/20/05 at 6:46pm
Ok, so 3 people with this problem... And I still haven't recieved a response back yet from Sager.
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post #20 of 29
7/21/05 at 12:59am
Thread Starter 
I recieved a call from a tech and it did not go too well. He kept telling me that the display only works in 60 Hz and I said it is set at 75 and he had a hard time believing me. After that I told him I thought it was the new BIOS and he told me it is not new and that no one else has had the problem, I said 2 others have reported teh same thing after getting the version of BIOS that I have that other people who posted the "newest" BIOS version was newer so I maintain we do have newer BIOS versions then most other users. He then asked if I had used the drivers from their site which I had in my namy reformats and installations of windows and the drivers. I was then put on hold and unfortunetly had to go to work so told him that I would prefer to continue the service through e-mail. Shift ends and no e-mail from Sager. If other users that do not have this problem could post their BIOS and VBIOS versions it would be appreciated but I am fairly certain that is the cause of the problem.
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