Here's a challenge...

Post by **wavetar** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:21 pm

Well, the script kiddies at MajorGeeks can't seem to help me, and so far neither can the local computer store geek. I'm having trouble with my brand new video card. I'll copy my post from MajorGeeks:

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.

After chatting with one of the techs where I purchased the card, he was convinced it was some sort of codec problem. I have since deleted all codecs from my computer (only had a few, since it was a fresh install) and completely replaced them all by installing one of those "all in one" codec packages you can download (K-lite full, this one was called). STILL crappy video playback.

Can one of you guys think of anything else?

firegood · Post by **firegood** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:17 pm

does that board have onbaord video? if so make shure that it is disabled in bios. check the settings in bios and make shure the apature size is at 128, and its set to boot agp then pci. The nvidia cards are much better than ati, however you might have a bad one. do you have another system you can test it in? what version of drivers are you running, if you have the new 70's series, the older cards like the 45's. let me know and ill hook you up with driver cleaner and the old drivers. I know i have seen this somewhere....

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 6:33 pm

I KNOW this one!

I had the same problem with my FX5700. Go to Nvidia and download the latest Forceware driver from them and install, reboot, and try the video. If it still looks like that then go into the settings, go to the Nvidia FX tab, the list will pop up to the left, click on color correction, click the set to defaults for all channels, apply, ok, reboot.

The color correction has been a problem since version 53.02 of the forceware drivers. I have done this so many times when updating Nvidia drivers its like second nature.

Another problem, sometimes you will right click on a video file and the screen will blank to black for second then the desktop comes back, this is due to the Nvidia driver checking for a video output, if your right click menu has an option that says PlayOnMyTV then you have the glitch. Easy to fix, you just have to seartch the registry for playonmytv and then keep going until you find an entry listed under a video file type, delete it, there is a few entries under video file types that need to be deleted and then this glitch goes away.

If you experience this problem let me know and i will get you the exact search key string to pin point the entries in the registry.

Post by **wavetar** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 6:19 am

kb0nly wrote:I KNOW this one!

I had the same problem with my FX5700. Go to Nvidia and download the latest Forceware driver from them and install, reboot, and try the video. If it still looks like that then go into the settings, go to the Nvidia FX tab, the list will pop up to the left, click on color correction, click the set to defaults for all channels, apply, ok, reboot.

The color correction has been a problem since version 53.02 of the forceware drivers. I have done this so many times when updating Nvidia drivers its like second nature.

.

Just so I'm clear, when you talk about the "Forceware" driver, are you referring to the unidriver package found here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_81.98.html

Because I have them installed already...I have also gone into colour correction and set all channels to default. I will double check it tonight when I get home.

firegood wrote:does that board have onbaord video? if so make shure that it is disabled in bios. check the settings in bios and make shure the apature size is at 128, and its set to boot agp then pci. The nvidia cards are much better than ati, however you might have a bad one. do you have another system you can test it in? what version of drivers are you running, if you have the new 70's series, the older cards like the 45's. let me know and ill hook you up with driver cleaner and the old drivers. I know i have seen this somewhere....

I will double-check the BIOS. The card is obviously being chosen correctly, as it works & the on-board doesn't while it's in there, but I haven't actually disabled the onboard in the BIOS. I'll double check the aperture size as well.

Thanks for the responses so far guys!

Todd

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:05 am

Yes, that's the Forceware driver on that page.

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.

If that doesn't work then you can do one of two things. You can use windows device manager to roll back to the previous driver and then install a different version, such as from the card manufacturer, and try again. Or you might need to replace the card, but i doubt it's the card if video is the only thing that looks whacked out.

I have had this same exact problem with the Forceware on my 5700 and i know a few that had the same problem with 5200 and 5600's.

I never had this problem with the manufacturer's drivers but then Gainward discontinued the best version ever of the FX5700 and now everyone just sells the FX5700LE which is slow in comparison to my card. The one i have is the gaming edition with 256MB and a clock speed that rivals the 5900. I still play the latest games on this card nearly two years after buying it, can't beat that, but i will probably upgrade and move this card to my other system.

As for the annoying screen flicker, here is how you fix that problem, you will most likely encounter it using the Forceware drivers.

The cause for this lies in nvcpl.dll a nvidia dll, which scans for connected TVs. The first time the dll is loaded, is at windows-bootup (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows->CurrentVersion->Run). This causes the first flicker and unfortunately the auto-startup-entry can't be deleted.

The flicker when right-clicking on video-files is caused by a shell-extension, which the nvidia-driver installs for all types of video-files. This shell-extension calls nvcpl.dll everytime you right click a video file to scan for connected TVs. If a TV is present, the shell extension shows up in the context-menu as "Play on My TV". I never tested this, but I suppose when you click it, the video is directly shown on your connected TV.

This could have been implemented a lot better, this sync-flicker is driving you crazy when browsing a video archive. After scanning the registry, I found the key responsible for the shell extension. Just search for "PlayOnMyTV" in the registry and you will find some entries under
"shellex" (shell extension). These entries contain an identifier,
{FFB699E0-306A-11d3-8BD1-00104B6F7516}. Now copy the identifier and search for it in the registry; delete every occurence when it's connected to video-file formats (.avi, .mpg, .mpeg and so on) and afterwards the
"PlayOnMyTV"-shellextensions.

That's it, now the flicker when right-clicking on video files should be gone.

Post by **wavetar** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:01 pm

kb0nly officially rocks! That did it...choosing "all" in the top box instead of the default "desktop" for both standard & advanced modes...reboot & voila, beautiful video playback. This forum rules.

Todd

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:11 pm

Thanks! And your Welcome!

Scott

AKA: The Computer Doctor