I have a dell PC with XP home SP2, 512mb Ram, 2.8ghz Pentium D onboard video and a new GeForce 6200 graphics card.

I have upgraded from a GeForce 5200, which worked fine. Both are PCI models, not PCI-E.

I removed the 5200 and installed the brand new 6200, booted up, logged into windows (In a strange resolution) and installed the driver from the CD supplied. When I rebooted, POST went fine as did the windows loading screen, but then the screen went blank. If I blindly type in my password and hit enter, I can hear the windows startup sound. This happened every time.

My bios only has options for Auto or Onboard. I changed to onboard and swapped the monitor lead to onbord video connector. Windows loads fine, I can log in etc. etc. using onboard video but the graphics card still just gives a black screen (The monitor still has a signal, so no 'Stand By' mode) after login.

Still using onboard video, I unistalled the driver I had just got of the CD, went to the Nvidea website and installed their latest driver, but I still get all the same symptoms and nothing has changed.

Please help. Sounds like you have a little driver contamination going on.

While using your onboard video, uninstall all the 5200/6200 drivers.
It is often not a one-step process, I'll post a link that might help.
You can either use the drivers that came with the new card (probably older but stable) or use 84.21
The 6200 likes 84.21

If you decide to use 84.21, just place it unzipped, in a folder that you can locate later. Write down the file name and location and then during the install just point Windows to it.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/video-card-support/151528-stickies.html
In the first post there is a link to the 84.21 drivers and also the very useful Driver Cleaner app that helps get rid of driver remnants after the basic uninstall phase.

With Driver Cleaner make sure you understand what you are telling it to remove.
Having said that, do you backups, set a Restore Point etc.


Thanks, for that, looks useful.

I don't have access to this PC at the moment (I will soon, I'm at the wrong house) and I will try that. I thought that maybe by default the graphics card is set to too high a reolution, so that on startup the monitor can't show DISPLAY it? If so safe mode should boot...just a guess, going over all possibilities.

I was using Nvidias 93.71 driver. The card is distributed by a company called PNY, and as nvidia don't support their graphics card (Rather, they manuacture the chips which are then used on the card by a different company) I'll have a look at their drivers too. I'll download the one you pointed me to and burn them all onto disk for when I go over along with that driver cleanup utility.

One more thing, the owner of the PC (It's not actually mine, I am just slightly more technically minded than he and therefore I am doing this on his behalf) did not uninstall the old driver. Because the 5200 is no longer in device manager, I can't uninstall the old driver. Do I need to find a way around this, or would the driver have been automatically replaced with the new one, or will it get cleaned up with the driver cleanup utiltlty?

Seeing as I can't check right now, anyone have any more suggestions so that I can do it all at once when I get there?

Edit// Is there a freeware alternative to driver cleaner.net? PURELY for reasons of convenience, I'm too young to own a credit card.I would check Dell's site for drivers for that card that match your system specs...Dell Machines are finicky about their own drivers.Quote from: wooden spoon on April 24, 2007, 03:25:03 PM

Thanks, for that, looks useful.

I don't have access to this PC at the moment (I will soon, I'm at the wrong house) and I will try that. I thought that maybe by default the graphics card is set to too high a reolution, so that on startup the monitor can't show display it? If so safe mode should boot...just a guess, going over all possibilities.

I was using Nvidias 93.71 driver. The card is distributed by a company called PNY, and as nvidia don't support their graphics card (Rather, they manuacture the chips which are then used on the card by a different company) I'll have a look at their drivers too. I'll download the one you pointed me to and burn them all onto disk for when I go over along with that driver cleanup utility.

One more thing, the owner of the PC (It's not actually mine, I am just slightly more technically minded than he and therefore I am doing this on his behalf) did not uninstall the old driver. Because the 5200 is no longer in device manager, I can't uninstall the old driver. Do I need to find a way around this, or would the driver have been automatically replaced with the new one, or will it get cleaned up with the driver cleanup utiltlty?

Edit// Is there a freeware alternative to driver cleaner.net? Purely for reasons of convenience, I'm too young to own a credit card.

Driver Cleaner is freeware (donationware if you like).
You are at the wrong site if they are asking for money.

This program is distributed under a CommercialWare-Like license.
Therefore, it cannot be downloaded for evaluation purposes.

It can only be obtained as a full version and only by purchasing.
If you want to purchase this product click here or on the left button

I would check Dell's site for drivers for that card that match your system specs...Dell Machines are finicky about their own drivers.