Vista - video just stopped working!

i have an nvidia 7800 gtx 512mb that has been working in my rig for several months now. Windows vista ultimate x64, foxconn micro atx mobo 4gig corsair ddr2800 ram, 250g hdd, 380w antec psu.
i just bought a 22" acer monitor a week ago.
i turned on the puter from sleep this morning and the computer turned right on, all lights, fans etc on. but nothing appeared on screen. it didnt beep since it was waking up from sleep, not off. in my morning grogginess i hit the reset button, it reset, beeped once and turned on but still no picture at all.
naturally i checked all connections and theyre fine. monitor has vga and dvi(using dvi) and i plugged it into the onboard dvi, and STILL nothing. being thorough, i plugged the vga in the onboard and the screen came on. tried the new 22 and an old crt in both dvi and vga and only the vga worked on both.
i checked the device manager and dxdiag and neither even see my video card now so i cant check drivers.
also dontknow if it applies but:
as vista users know, you can change what the power button does and i had it set to put the puter to sleep. in my checks, i noticed that that setting changed to "do nothing" and the sleep option was entirely gone.
maybe windows is corrupted? i hope its as easy as a reformat or something...what's blowing my brain is that the fan on the gpu comes on still. can that happen and it still be dead?

please help!

Hey Briefcase,

Try to get another graphic card from somewhere so you can test it out, or if you have onboard try to see if that works.

Pooch

I think I know exactly what your problem is but I will take it slow as to not make your computer explode if it is not necessary

Is your acer 22" lcd monitor an AL2216W? or did you get the AL2216WD.

If the first one, the 32 bit drivers of the Acer are incompatible with Vista and/or the latest Nvidia drivers... they don't really like each other.

How do I know this? I have the same monitor and it is a beauty as long as I am using my XP boot but, as soon as I boot with my Vista x64 OS and play some of the newer games, the errors start to come up, freezes, recoverable video drivers, pc not responding before the windows login splash screen (your problem), etc, etc.

What I had to do was, I had to use the Vista drivers that come with the AL2216WD monitor and I have not had a problem since...

Being said that, I will state that I will feel extremely bad if you fry your rig so please... do this at your own risk.

1.- Go into safe mode, once there, uninstall your current drivers (if your drivers come with the PhysX drivers, uninstall those as well before rebooting).

2.- Once this is done the PC should be able to login onto your desktop, I would be very worried if it didn't. If you have a good registry cleaner (cccleaner for example) go ahead and run it to get rid of any old driver instances.

3.- Go fetch the AL2216WD Acer Vista drivers and donwload to a safe folder, one you can get to it later. Open the folder and run the installation as an administrator (right click on .exe file and "Run as Admin", follow the different options and Reboot again (I have this fetish with rebooting so just bare with me).

3.- Just for good measure, go fetch a clean copy of your latest Nvidia drivers and download to a safe folder again. Uncompress the .exe file you just got from Nvidia in the same folder and DO NOT INSTALL YET.

4.- Go to your Device Manager and look under Display Devices, the Std VGA driver should be displayed here. Double click on it and then click on the Driver tab, click on Update Driver, follow the prompts but tell it to let you look for the drivers on your own and browse to where you have the uncompress folder ("Have Disk" should be an option somewhere, click on it). The name of your card should appear and Vista will install the drivers perfectly.

Reboot again and live happily ever after... we hope!

thanks for the replies guys.
pooch, i did try the onboard and it worked when i plugged it into the vga but not dvi on the mobo.

asta, my monitor actually is neither of those 2. its an x223w. $150 for black friday ^_^
anyways, there are no drivers at all for this monitor to my knowledge. none came and i havent found any anywhere else.

now. funny thing. i left the monitor plugged into the onboard where it worked last and i went to work. my wife called and said the monitor isnt working halfway thru the day....scared me. got home and now i plugged in both monitors with vga to dvi adapters....AND THEY WORK!!
im os comfused....is my gpu GOING to die or something?

And here I said I was going to take it slow, got excited and ranted away anyways... sorry!

Go to device manager and under Monitors, check to see if you have a std PnP monitor or if it lists your Acer. If it doesn't list your Acer, the drivers used are just the std PnP drivers and this could be the culprit, although, an old or damaged card can also cause it I guess.

OK so, Acer x223w is the correct model for that monitor then?

I found this, alledgedly, it works for both Vista & XP

Acer Europe - Service & Support, Drivers & Utilities, Downloads, Monitor, Acer AL 2223

Anoter link, don't know if file is the same though.

Acer LCD Monitor X223W - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com

Hey Briefcase, I cant say for certain that your Graphic is ok, but this is not the first time that I have heard of problems involving these adapters or not!!

Got my fingers crossed that it keeps working

Pooch

ok i dl'd the second link you gave but im not so good at the whole driver thing on vista yet. how do i install it? lol i tried having it search the folder where i extracted it to but win said my drivers were up to date...
it is listed as a generic pnp btw
i have a good feeling that the cables that came with the monitor are very shoddy....they even feel cheap. ill get some new ones and see what happens.the dvi isnt 24 pin either.
as for my card, ill upgrade as soon as i can regardless since its showing its age with the newer games.

to install, look at my long rant post, if you still don't know how... let me know and I'll try a different way.

Sorry, I know Vista gurus do it differently and quicker but I am still old XP school and have not gotten around the whole vista thing yet.

erg...there is no .exe file lol. i clicked install profile like it said but nothin happened.