Sapphire x700, Samsung 940BW, Windows XP SP2 and graphic drivers=black screen

[jcdenton21]

Hello guys,
I have huge problem and I hope you will help me to solve it

my rig is

ASUS A8N-E 1010 bios
Sapphire ATi Radeon x700 PCIe x16 (400/500, no OC no volt mods)
1024MB PQI 3-4-4-8 1T@400MHz (2.65V)
AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2000MHz@2400MHz 1.41V real, 1.375V in bios)
120GB SATA 7200.7 Seagate
Seasonic S-12 380W (22A/21A/10+15A +3V/+5V/+12V)
TechniSAT SkyStar 2 2.6d
Samsung SyncMaster 940BW connected via DVI (native resolution 1440x900@60Hz)

GPU is cooled by Zalman VF700 AlCu
CPU is colled by modded Arctic Cooling Freezer64 PRO (installed 120mm Arctic Cooling fan instead of default 92mm)
northbridge is cooled by Zalman nb47j (in a month´s time thermalright hr-05 sli is arriving )
120mm Thermaltake A2029 as an intake fan
Arctic Cooling 120mm used to be an outtake fan but now it is installed on freezer
case is open

so and now I am going to try to explain my problem
few weeks earlier my sceen started flashing
Windows XP SP2 installed, BIONC running, but no 3D load
I was working and LCD displayed what it should have displayed and then suddenly a black screen for a short time was displayed and then again it displayed my desktop as before
LCD was flashing until it went black and was detecting sources of video signal (Analog/Digital)
so I connected my 15" old CRT and both monitors were flashing at the same time so I think it is not LCD or cable related problem
I don´t know if I explained it good enough so here is video captured by phone (I am sorry for low resolution but it is good enough to ilustrate my problem)
I tried different drivers (6.4, 6.5, 6.7, 6.9, 7.1, 7.4, Catalyst, NGO, Omega) but it didn´t solve my problem
When I power up my PC bios screen is displayed everytime and without errors (artifacts), graphic card sends signal into LCD and LCD always detects source of signal as Digital (connected via DVI so it is OK)
So if the LCD displays bios and other loading screens OK I hope it is not a hardware (VGA) related problem

Everything works fine until Windows is loaded. Then there should be displayed Welcome screen and I should see my desktop, but when it comes to showing Welcome screen, LCD starts to detecting sources of video signals (Analog/Digital) and then it turns itself into Stand-By mode, but computer continues loading process and I can hear welcome "song".
This video show exactly what is happening

Firstly I thought it could be caused by overheating even when system only idles.
I remounted Zalman VF700 AlCu with new thermal paste (Arctic Silver Ceramique) and then I put it into slot again.
Temperature was at about 30°C in 2D with fan running at 100% but it didn´t solve my problem.
Second very common advice is to demount it from case, remove dust and then mount it back into case.
So I demounted it, removed dust, aplied new thermal paste onto CPU, northbridge and even voltage regulator around CPU socket (mosfets) and mounted it into case, but it didn´t solve my problem.

So I decided to boot using Safe mode
It worked fine with windows XP default VGA driver.
I rebooted to Standard mode with installed VGA drivers and black screen was the only thing displayed on LCD (as I mentioned above, bios and load screens were dispalyed OK)
So reboot into Safe mode and I uninstalled ATi Display drivers.
Reboot into standard mode and it worked fine with Windows XP default VGA driver.
I tried lot of different VGA drivers but it was till the same.
So I decided to reinstall Windows XP SP2. Firstly without formatting HDD (lot of data without backup) but it didn´t solve my problem.
I made backup and did full format and then installed Windows XP SP2 but even this didn´t help.
I installed Catalyst and after reboot only black screen, removed catalyst in safe mode and it worked fine again
so I worked out that it could posiibly be a driver related problem, but it used to work fine with the same drivers and the same HW configuration at least a year long.

On another partition I had Windows XP x64 SP2 with installed catalyst drivers (6.7)
I booted and it was displaying everything corrcetly even with drivers.
I wasn´t testing it very long but 5 reboots and it worked fine so I think it is not Hardware problem, or at least I hope so.
Graphic card doesn´t overheat and screen is not corrupted (artifacts)

So to sum it up
It works fine with no VGA driver installed in XP SP2 32bit OS
I works fine with VGA driver installed in XP x64 SP2 64bit OS
It doesn´t work fine with VGA driver installed in XP SP2 32bit OS

The other thing I worked out is that this flashing could be caused by CLI.exe or the other 2 ati***.exe processes
[UR]http://www.laboratorium.ic.cz/problemy/940BW_a_obraz/cli.exe%20debilita.PNG[/URL]

If I kill those 2 ati***.exe processes, LCD stops flashing at the same time but sometimes it flashes once again after some time
But it is hard to kill processes when you are blind (black screen)

VGA has warranty I think at least 5 months but there could be problem with proving what is wrong.
It worked fine last month but it got corrupted last Thursday
So it the technician puts it ino PC and it boots fine, my claim would not be accepted.

I inserted Voodo3 2000 PCI just for a try and it worked OK but with windows drivers and so does my sapphire too.

I have no other PC to try VGA in and no other VGA to try it in my MoBo

I am sorry for a bit longer post but I wanted to explain it correctly
And I am sorry for my English too.

Thanks for your replies

 

[Polaris573]

Are you sure you are downloading the correct drivers for your 32 bit version of Windows? Remember the 64 bit drivers will not work with the 32 bit version of windows and vice-versa.

 

[bruins004]

Yes please make sure you downloaded the 32 bit drivers.
Also, did you have another video card installed before that.
If so make sure you deleted those drivers first.

 

[d44ve]

I am sorry, I am not going to be any help at all.

I just want to thank you for posting your problem properly. I hope other people see this and see what needs to be included. Very detailed with your complete specs!

 

[jcdenton21]

Are you sure you are downloading the correct drivers for your 32 bit version of Windows? Remember the 64 bit drivers will not work with the 32 bit version of windows and vice-versa.

of course I did
I know that and I think it would be impossible to install 64bit drivers to 32bit system or 32bit drivers to 64bit system

 

[Polaris573]

If everything works fine in one version of windows and not in another, than the point of failure is most likely software related. Furthermore booting in safe mode loads the standard VGA driver and it works okay with that, so my best guess is something is wrong with the ATI drivers. However, I have no clue what it could be. I'm sorry.

I'm grasping at straws here, but maybe try updating your chipset drivers as well. You might try calling ATI too, but more than likely they'll will deny any problems with their flawless software and try to shift the blame to anybody and anything but themselves.

 

[jcdenton21]

so first of all I have to update new informations that I forgot to mention or I wasn´t sure at all

so I got XP x64 fixed (ntoskrnl.exe corrupted) and after loading LCD started flashing as 32bit XP
I killed ati processes and it worked fine

and today PC was running 8 hours today
surfing on internet, burning CDs and DVDs and watching films
no problem at all, everything worked as it should

I went out and I did not shut down the system but I pressed Power saving (Hibernation)(S3) mode (I don´t have English XP but I hope I named it correctly - the left button when you click Start-Shut down)
Then I powered up the system and in few seconds of seeing desktop LCD went black (without flashing)
reset and it is working OK
almost all drivers installed, only ACPI driver is missing

I will keep this topic updated

 

[Polaris573]

The missing ACPI driver would definitely cause your hibernation and suspend troubles.