Windows lockup when seond display is attached.

[jedimasterben]

I posted something like this around a month ago (8/31/09), with a ton of reads, but no replies, so here we go again.


So I recently upgraded myself from a 4830 to a 4870 and I decided to give my old GPU to my friend, who had a 4670, so he was getting a pretty good upgrade.

This was his 4670: http://powercolor.com/eng/products_features.asp?ProductID=6031

This is the new 4830: http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?psn=000101&pid=222

And the 4830 has a Zalman VF900Cu Strapped to it, and the memory chips on the back of the card are cooled by copper chips, so there's no overheating.

My friend also has dual monitors, two 19" Hanns*G LCD's (1440x900), and Windows 7 build 7100. The motherboard is an MSI P43 Neo-F, with a Pentium Dual Core e5200 clocked at 3.3GHz, with 4GB of G.Skill 800MHz DDR2.

The motherboard, graphics, monitors, etc have the latest drivers. EDIT: and are perfectly stable (Prime95/Memtest/Furmark/etc)

Now, onto the problem.

As soon as the second monitor is connected to either the VGA, HDMI, or DVI port, Windows crashes. It doesn't BSOD, it just quits. Odd white lines run vertically across both monitors, and remains until I cut power to computer.

With both monitors plugged in at once during bootup, the BIOS POST displays on both screens like normal, and same with the Windows startup screen. As soon as it would normally go to the desktop, it stops. Both monitors display a black screen. No startup noises or anything.

With one monitor plugged into any port, the computer boots into Windows like normal, and says "Windows has recovered from a serious error" etc, so it knows that it's crashing.

I have tried switching the cables between the two monitors, several DVI and VGA cables and adapters and such, all with no luck.

Now, when the card was in my computer, I could get it to work just fine. I'd have it connected to my 19" Dell LCD through DVI and my 26" Samsung LCD TV with HDMI, and could work on them like normal.

This setup worked fine for him with the 4670, but as soon as I dropped in the 4830, it went straight to hell.

If anyone has any information that can help, please let me know. I've outgoogled myself trying to figure this thing out.

 

[buwish]

I would suggest checking out ATI's website and updating the drivers (if you haven't done so already) Do they have any out for W7 yet? or at least in beta form like some manufacturers of other hardware components?

 

[505090]

make sure all traces of the previous drivers are uninstalled then hook up both monitors and try again

 

[jedimasterben]

Drivers aren't the issue. We've tried the current 9.9's all the way down to 9.5 with no luck, so we didn't see much use in going further.

Also, driver "cleaning" has done diddly squat for me since I first heard about it a few years ago. I have found no difference between normally uninstalled and "cleaned" uninstalls.

 

[jfreggie]

So we're safe to assume that you haven't tried driver cleaning? Since technology doesn't change over the years or anything....
Try wiping the old drivers, restart the computer, install new drivers... really, what else do you have to lose?

 

[505090]

Drivers aren't the issue. We've tried the current 9.9's all the way down to 9.5 with no luck, so we didn't see much use in going further.

Also, driver "cleaning" has done diddly squat for me since I first heard about it a few years ago. I have found no difference between normally uninstalled and "cleaned" uninstalls.

true it is rarely needed seeing as most drivers rarely get corrupted, but then I rarely need chkdsk seeing as hard drives rarely go out either. Yet when I do need them they both turn out to be rather spiffy options.

 

[jedimasterben]

So we're safe to assume that you haven't tried driver cleaning? Since technology doesn't change over the years or anything....
Try wiping the old drivers, restart the computer, install new drivers... really, what else do you have to lose?

Even though it never worked before, I did try it, and it didn't help.

true it is rarely needed seeing as most drivers rarely get corrupted, but then I rarely need chkdsk seeing as hard drives rarely go out either. Yet when I do need them they both turn out to be rather spiffy options.

Very true.


At any rate, the cleaning did not work. All traces were removed, but to no avail. We're pretty much at our wit's end with it.

I'm actually considering dropping in an old Geforce FX 5500 into a PCI slot for him until we can test it out on Windows 7 when we can get our student discounts.

Thank you guys for your suggestions, though, and if you have any more information, we'd love to give it a shot.

 

[505090]

if either monitor works on either port in any combo, then there are only two plausible problems corupte files (win or driver, the most likely though possibly a program) or an incorrect setting in CCC, though i can't think of one that would do that.

 

[jedimasterben]

We've tried all three in each configuration; DVI +HDMI, DVI + VGA, and HDMI + VGA and none of them worked.

We've also reinstalled CCC like a million times and reset it as well, so safe to say we've exhausted that option. 😛