Vista - nVidia driver kills screen

Hello, I have a problem I hope you can help me with! I searched the forum but didnt find a similar case as mine.

Ive been running Vista Ultimate x64 for about 7 months now, worked smooth once I got rid of all the little things. Today I recieved a Raptor harddrive to use as my primary, so Ive been formatting and re-installing. Sadly, it seems that when I install the nVidia drivers for my graphics card, the screen dies. I can hear the pc working, and if I reboot it, I can hear the Vista start-up tune. But the screen is completely dead. Both are, actually. Ive tried only plugging in one screen, but it doesnt seem to affect the situation. Reading up on the problem, I was suggested to start-up in safe mode and remove the driver again, which I did. But the second the driver was uninstalled, Vista itself seemed to install the drive, it gave the usual "new hardware detected" and installed one "GeForce 8800 GTS" which is my card. Then the screen went blank again.

I believe that I can fix this problem by going to safe mode, and install a functioning driver, my problem however, is that I dont know which drivers are useable and where to get them. I have tried the newest from nVidia's own site, one called 175.19 aswell as an older one I had lying around from when I last installed a graphics driver. neither worked. So if anyone have a sure-fire driver to use with Vista Ultimate 64-bit and a GeForce 8800GTS card, I'd be most appreciative!

Thank you

175.19 is in fact the latest WHQL certified driver...

you can try this ......169.25

ForceWare Release 169

its old but i believe it to be one of if not the most stable driver for 8800s
it works on every rig.
i don't think i have heard one compatibility issue with this

but it does not sound driver related .....
im sure vista will install 169.25 automatically (mine does)

& all you did was install a new HDD...? you touched nothing else.

Does your card output HDMI or other?

I have seen this when the HDMI thinks the chain of security is broken and will not go into HIRES mode. So it goes black, but stays on in Safe mode cause the resolution is lower

Thank you for your replies!

Skunksmash, I have tried that driver just now, and it didnt work. In fact, no driver seems to work. If I install a driver, boot in safe mode, remove it, boot normally, and cancel the automatic driver install (Vistas own) then I can use my pc and the screen, but as soon as I reboots or lets it install a driver of any kind, the screen goes blank again.

Philhu, the card is a GeForce 8800GTS 640mb and has 2 HDMI ports, so perhaps that may be whats wrong with it. Do you have any solutions?

Thank you both in advance

Woops, to answer all your questions, I formatted my old C-drive (a 80gb sata) and formatted the 150gb raptor (the new one) and then installed Vista on the 150gb. Nothing else has changed... well, I did take the entire pc apart to clean it, but it seems to work just fine, with the hardware at least.

Go back into safe mode and then use Guru3D - Driver Sweeper (Setup) download from Guru3D.com (follow the instructions there carefully) and then reboot and let it install the default Vista drivers. This *should* remove all reg entries about the resolution settings as well, and thus will allow Vista to install and keep a very low (800 x 600?) res so that you can then manually pick them to see where it is failing.

If the symptoms persist, perhaps you need to evaluate if it is the card causing the issue....

Just for comparrison, I've using the latest Nvidia drivers for an 8800GTS 512 card and it runs fine.

Was the card overclocked at all as well?

you say you took the rig apart to clean it....did you remove the ram..?

if you removed the GPU you may have damaged it in some way
static maybe..??

the card seems to run fine until you try & install the driver then it dies.....but the machine keeps running so i would be looking at the GPU ....

also it maybe a coincidental PSU deterioration (not delivering enough power)
...this happened to me once
i was installing a new chip & the rig had worked fine for at least a year... changed the chip, it would boot & spin up but no picture.. i must have reseated that chip, my ram & card at least 30 times before i tried another PSU ...
& it fired straight up

philhu's take on it is promising ..
i have never heard of it but i would google this ''HIRES mode'' see if you can find anything

do you have access to another GPU / PSU to try...?

Oh dear... seems im abit of a drooling retard. After what Philhu wrote, I started looking at the card and realised I had not only two monitors on HDMI ports, but also connected the tv via the S-VHS port. I removed the tv and 2nd monitor and, well... woops. It worked again. My bad guys!

The installer for 177.79 is giving me grief, saying the installer is a 32-bit program and that it wont install, but I should be able to figure it out from here. I'll leave this to read for anyone as stupid as me, pull out the extra monitors and tvs untill you've installed some drivers!

Thank you guys who gave advice and helped, you guys are great!

Glad it worked out - seems none of us thought to ask *how many* devices you had plugged in, as we all assumed that was fine. I know *I* learned something from this - I hope others did too.

re: drivers, yeah, that is an easy one to figure out - you grabbed the 32bit drivers, not the 64bit drivers.