Windows Server - Safe Mode Display

I am using Win2KProSp4 and a GeForce AGP 7600GT vid card and when I go into
Safe Mode, the display is tattered, torn up and I cannot really read the
letters on the Icons. When I move the mouse pointer, it cause tearing etc. I
did not have this problem before I installed this card.
I have reinstalled the vid drivers (very difficult because the tearing etc
in Normal mode is the same after I uninstall the vid drivers and reboot)
with the latest from Nvidea and also Omegaman's drivers.
I uninstalled the previous drivers, rebooted and than installed the drivers
again.
My old vid card was an ATI Radeon 8500 AGP and it did not cause the above
tearing etc when the drivers were removed. It seemed to have a basic VGA
driver that took over then.
I guess my question is that I wonder if there ishould be a default VGA driver
that would let that card work after I uninstall the videp drivers.
Thanks,
Buffalo

I used to have the same symptoms a few years ago only I was using a
Nvidia Geforce2 MX AGP. The problem would occur from time to time when I
booted up my pc, and the tearing was present in Safe and Normal modes.
Even trying to reload the AGP drivers did not fix it. The only way I
could restore to a normal display was to re-install Windows 2k (sp4). My
pc then worked ok for a while then the problem would eventually return
when the pc was booted. In the end I managed to track down rhe cause,
and it was down to the chipset drivers supplied by Dell for my Dell pc.
My solution was not to install these but to let Windows 2k generic
drivers take care of the chipset. I'vs had no repeat of the problem since.

Interesting. I just reinstalled my agp drivers from ECS with no difference.
(EliteGroup mb K7s5a ver 3.1)
What specific mb drivers did Win2K install? Interesting that a reinstall of
Win2kSP4 fixed it for awhile. Was that a fresh (clean) install, or just an
install over the top?
I may just reinstall all my MB drivers.
I cannot seem to find the Standard PCI VGA Display Drivers.inf file on my
computer. When I uninstall my vid drivers and reboot, the display is so
corrupted with incomplete objects and tearing, when I moved the mouse
pointer, that I had a hard time installing the vid drivers again. I finally
got it down to a point where I knew what to do and what to click on to
complete the install, even though I could not read what was happening. The
biggest problem was that the install would stop because there was a screen
behind the install screen that stated the drivers were not certified and
asked if I wanted to install them anyways. Since I could not see it, I
could not get the drivers installed. Later, I knew it was there and worked
around it.

Thanks for you input.

Buffalo

As I understand it, each video card is supposed to support some standard
output modes. When no custom video driver is available, the OS uses its own VESA
video driver, to make the video card work as a frame buffer. (If that driver
did not exist, you would not have a video display during the stages of OS
installation.) You'd suspect that driver was being used, when colors are
stuck at 16 colors, and display resolution is 800x600 or 640x480
(i.e. a pretty low res).

There are two parts to drivers. There is the video card driver for the
card. But there is also the motherboard chipset AGP driver, which
declares the protocols it is supposed to support. On one of my Intel
boards, you could change the AGP slot, between PCI protocol, or full
AGP protocol, just by changing the driver used from the chipset drivers.

Some chipset AGP drivers, also include a control panel for AGP in the
OS, where you can set a couple things. Again, this is manufacturer
specific, and needs to be researched first. For Intel, the settings
would be in the BIOS, rather than being a poorly written app for
the OS later.

Some chipsets have problems with their AGP performance. The video card
manufacturers know this, and they have a "quirks" list in the video card
driver, such that they will not use AGP speed settings known to cause problems.
For example, if the AGP interface will not run properly at 4x, the driver
may choose to run at 1x. The ATI driver in particular, has "SMARTGart", which
overrides your BIOS AGP speed setting, and does it is own speed setting. This
may cause the ATI card display to flash briefly during POST. Once the
driver is happy with the speed it has determined (or the quirks have told it
to use), it will not try a higher speed until you use the SMARTGart control panel.
The first release of SMARTGart was a disaster (caused crashes), but after
three or four attempts to get it right, it finally worked respectably.

I am not aware of NVidia doing the same thing. it is possible the AGP
setting in the BIOS, is in control for NVidia.

And then, you need to trace down the particulars for your motherboard chipset,
to see if it had any issues.

Towards the end of the AGP era, the last chipsets made finally had AGP
electrical interfaces, that properly implemented signaling. In the middle
of the AGP era, some chipset makers struggled to get their AGP slots
to run fast enough. And the marginal operation is what annoyed a lot of
users. If you use a board like the K7S5A, you would  want to Google around,
to see if the chipset ever caused a problem or not. I do not see any
mention of a problem here, but perhaps there is a better guide somewhere
else.

http://k7s5amotherboardforum.yuku.com/forum/viewtopic/id/888

Paul

There is a whole load of chipset drivers for all machines up to 2003 that
Win2k covers If you look at machine.inf file (under WINNT) they are
listed in there. Eg I have an Intel chipset 850 in my machine. The
actual reference to my chipset driver is listed in the registry under
HKLM/SYSTEM/ComtrolSet002/Enum/PCI/VEN&8086_DEV....where one of the
devices listed is described as an Intel(R) 82801BA/BAM SMBus Controller
- 2443, which I know correctly identifies my Intel 850 chipset. So my mb
is automatically covered by Win2k, but then my machine is 10 years old.
You should not have to worry about thr 'inf' file for VGA as its driver
is supplied by bootvid.dll which automatically supplies the VGA You
do not have to uninstall Nvidia drivers as only the dll file is loaded
and not the Vvidia drivers. it is the same file for Win2k in 'Safe' or
even 'VGA' mode on the F8 menu when you boot. The fact that even VGA is
corrupted suggests a chipset problem or a problem card, but before
cosidering the latter....

I suggest doing a fresh re-install (partition and format) using ECS
drivers to start with. Make sure the correct chipset driver is the first
one you you install after Win2k sps installs. Hopefully that will fix
the problem. When you have installed all the basic drivers, ie sound,
video, do a backup of your system state (NTBackup. That's saved me many
a time when the odd problem comes along

My present system is a dual boot system, Win98SE-Win2k SP4.

Thanks for that advice Frank, but I am afraid formating and doing a fresh
clean install of Win2kSP4 is way too much work with all the updates and
reinstalling all of my programs.
It may well fix the problem I am having, but I will just put up with the
minor inconvenience that I now have (as long as I do not need to install new
vid drivers or go into Safe mode).  :(
I also have two of those cards (7600GT) and both have the same problem.
Haven't tried older Nvidea drivers though.
I also reinstalled the ECS AGP drivers and changed the refresh rate of my
LCD monitor from 75Hz to 60Hz with no difference with the problem.
I also just installed the Nvidea 94.24 drivers over the Omega drivers.
Slight change in color, but the same problem.

Probably a corrupt or missing file somewhere in my Win2k OS. Win 2k is very
stable but I believe I will be building a new PC with Win7 before next
winter.  :)

Any suggestions? I do like playing Q3 online and some of the older games
like Half-Life, Doom3, Unreal Tournament, Halo, etc.

Thanks,
Buffalo

Not sure if this would work:

In the normal mode, under Display properties change the resolution to
800?600 temporarily (safe mode default)

Click Advanced/Adapter/ Click List all modes.. and select a [resolution
+ refresh rate + color mode setting] for that particular resolution
(note down the original setting before changing to revert back later).

Click OK and Restart to safe mode for any improvement. You can always
add this to the list of not workable if it fails!

I think it is possible to apply higher resolution and color mode for
safe mode though never tried.

--
/Mohan/

For Win2K, there really are not all that many updates. You have your
initial Win2K install, then install SP4 service pack. I have a
slipstreamed CD I made, so when reinstalling, I am already at
Win2K SP4. (I made mine with Autostreamer.)

Then there is the Update Rollup, which is like a miniature
service pack. And that is about it. Since they no longer
support Windows Update for Win2K, I do not think you
can do anything from that point of view.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B54730CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

You'd still need some DirectX installs for the games, but the
games sometimes do that for you, during installation.

If you have backup software, you could always back up your
current setup, and try a clean install and see how it goes.
If it is not looking any better, then you can restore
what you have currently got installed.

Paul

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B54730CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en&displaylang=en
Yep, I have a backup to an external HDD.
But, I only have one HDD in my PC and it is a dual boot 98se-win2k system
and I would really hate to screw it up.
I am not familar enough with doing a complete deletion and format of just
one partition to justify possibly screwing up my whole system.
There has to be a solid reason why I am having these problems. I think it
either has to be an OS problem or a video driver problem.

Thanks again,
Buffalo

Respectfully, Buffalo ... just an observation, if you have that little
confidence in your backup/restore process then you really do not have a
reliable backup system. It would be worth addressing that as soon as you
can, quite apart from your other problems.

I have many OS partitions on many machines, all backed up (though
perhaps not as up-to-date as they should be in some cases). I would not
think twice about wiping a partition for a re-install with a view to a
possible later restore.

You're probably right. I have never restored anything off an external USB
HDD, but I once used my Ghost image to restore my C: partition and it worked
like a charm. Course, it was on a  partition on the same HDD.
At least now I have it backed up on an external USB HDD.
I am glad you reminded my to look up on how to use that backup. Damn, I may
need it sooner than I think.

Thanks again,
Buffalo

PS: I do not think I am the only person in the world that has that problem
with the AGP GeForce 7600GT 256MB vid card and Win2000ProSP4.

I have had problems on Win2K before, but it was because I did not remove
the old drivers, before installing new ones. The machine had a Matrox
card at one time, an ATI, and finally an NVidia, and the drivers were
a mess. In particular, an inspection showed after Add/Remove of ATI
driver, there were still ATI files in the system. What eventually happened,
is I could no longer get accelerated video to work (no gaming), no matter
what I did with drivers. I had to reload the OS and start from scratch.
Worked fine after that. Moral of the story was - need "much hygiene"
with regard to video card drivers. I even tried all the available
figure out, what exactly was broken.

Paul

I did have ATI drivers before this card (8500LE) and I did uninstall and
also used an ATI driver cleaner and a search for anything ATI, in files and
in the Registry.
I think you are probably correct that something is amiss in my Win2K system.
I do not believe that I will do a clean install of my OS since my backup was
made after the problem started and I have a lot of programs I would have to
reinstall if I did it,
Thanks again for your thoughtful input.
Buffalo
PS: If you can think of something else, let me know.
PPS:It is extremely difficult to install new (different) drivers as the
display gets so corrupted when I remove the previous drivers and reboot.The
display tears so bad when I move the mouse pointer that it is almost like
doing it blindly and from memory.
It did not do that when I uninstalled the ATI drivers and rebooted to install
the GeForce drivers the first time.

Risky ... if that HD dies everything is gone. If you are backing up on
the same machine, at least use a second HD.



Yes, that is what I do and I do it with a Ghost DOS boot disc (mini-cd).
On some machines, the BIOS USB driver will not work with my version of
Ghost so I have to force Ghost to use its own but that works well
enough. I also use Ghost's "check image file" on each backup after I
make it - would not want to need to restore it and find that it is junk!

That's a common viewpoint and obviously it is your call but it can be
very rewarding to bite the bullet and most people who do so are glad
they did. I do not think it is an option that should be dismissed lightly.

It does need a bit of forethought and planning-ahead such as:

- gather all required drivers (latest versions)

- review your apps and determine which ones you want to keep (I'd be
surprised if you did not find that half of them were unnecessary)

- prioritise the remaining apps into stuff that has to be installed
immediately; those that can be installed over a few days; those that can
be installed "as required".

- if you can, put all of the drivers and apps onto a single cd/dvd (that
really helps).

You'll probably lose the system for a day or so but when you finish
you will have a "new" system - much cleaner and "perkier" than before.

Another possibility if you have the room is to create another partition
and do the fresh install in that while keeping the working original in a
multi-boot system.

Does my bias show? :-)

(Sorry - probably teaching my grandmother to suck eggs).

If I do go through the trouble of formatting and a clean install, I believe
I will just install XP Home
instead of Win2KProSP4. Then, if that is successful, I may well just get rid
of my 98SE and change partition sizes.
Thanks again,
Buffalo

The thing is the amount of time you have already spent trying to fix this
you could have done a clean install and reloaded all your essential
progs, You can always make the job a lot eadier in future if you keep a
copy of all your 'prog install exe' files you download from in a single
folder (eg Downloads). Then it is just a matter of systematically going
through each one to restore your software. Of course if you have a few
hundred plus downloaded progs, it is going to take a while, but you do not
have to do it all at once.