[Lone500]

i will try to make this as short as possible.

I lately had to format and reload my OS on my computer. I have a Dell Dimension 4600 running windows xp home.

My monitor is a Dell E773c color monitor.

My card is a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200.

When i right click on the desktop and select properties to get to "display properties" i will go to the settings tab. It says Display:(Default Monitor). It used to say what my graphics card was.

In my Device Manager Video Controller (VGA Compatible) is one of the 4 things with the questions mark and exclamation point.

No where in the device manager does it have a spot with "Display adapter". It SHOULD have my graphics card under that i do believe.

As for my monitor there is also no spot in the device manager for monitors at all. I do have a cd that came with the monitor but all it does is basicaly tell you how to care for the monitor and how to assemble it.

I have downloaded the necessary driver for my graphics card from www.dell.com and installed it. But after i have installed it my screen will go black and upon rebooting it will turn black and stay black right before it would be getting to the log on screen.

Any suggestions to help me out? like this is really cant play games or do much of anything really.

[Dave Hybrid]

As you have a Nvidia GFX card get the drivers for it from them, not dell.

[Lone500]

i actually did download a forceware driver thing from NVIDIA and it pretty much did the same thing.

[Lone500]

i even tried uninstalling the video controller and then restarting my computer. after restarting it i would cancel the thing that wants me to install the video controller and instead ran the driver installer i downloaded from NVIDIA. same results. after install screen goes black and stays black.

[Lone500]

after much messing around with it (hours) i got it to show "display adapters" in my device manager and got my graphics card installed under that with the newest driver.

unfortunatly it wouldnt work. the screen would stay on for like 10 seconds then go black for 10 seconds and it did that a few times and on like the 4th time it came back the screen was really weird looking (nothing the right color and such).

so i went and installed the old driver that came on the cd that came with my computer. That didnt work either.It just went black and stayed black that time. so im out of options unless someone can give me something more.

[Carbon]

You need to uninstall the previous drivers (not the video controller) completely before applying the forcewares.

[Lone500]

there are no previous drivers to uninstall. whenever i install one and it messes it up i use a checkpoint to go back before that.

[Carbon]

System Restore is stupid and buggy and you're probably messing it up more by going back like that. If you can see your screen, there are drivers to uninstall. You need to go to System in control panel, find your card or controller, right clcik, hit properties, go to driver, hit uninstall driver. The screen should turn off for a few seconds, then Windows will reinstall its "basic" driver and then you should install the forceware.

[Lone500]

yes the basic driver is the video controller (VGA compatible). i uninstalled it and then installed the forceware.

ive also done the same thing and installed the old driver that came with the computer.

i have even uninstalled the video controller-- restarted my computer and when it brought up that it wanted me to install the video controller i would exit that and install my video card.

Every time and every way i have tried it hasnt worked. sometimes the screen will go black and just stay black after installation. sometimes it might go black and then come back on for a few seconds and then go black and repeat that a few times before it went black and stayed black.

But upon restart it would always go black and stay black whenever it got to the log on screen.