Vista - Is Vista 64 my problem?

OK, I'm about to go up in the attic and get my C-64 down for some Dr. J vs. Larry Bird. I've had it with this system.

Here's what I have...

ASUS Crosshair
AMD 6400 Black Edition
8gig OCZ SLI DDR2 800
2 x XFX 8600GT XXX 256MB running in SLI
Soundblaster Fatality Championship X-Fi sound card
Acer AL2216W monitor (native res 1680 x 1050)
OCZ 700w psu
250gb wd hd
1tb wd hd
Thermaltake Armor
more fans than I can count

Here's what's going on...

About a year ago I installed Vista 64. After about 3 or 4 months my video drivers got kicked out and the Vista driver was installed. My resolution reached a maximum of 1024 x 768. Don't remember what I did to fix it but I got the resolution back. A few months later it happened again. I couldn't correct it for anything. I finally went back to XP.

Later I heard that there had been a bunch of improvements to Vista, so I reinstalled it around Dec. '08. Everything was great. Then, last week, my resolution went out again.

I've tried the following...

Installed the Vista 64 drivers that came with the video cards.
Installed the latest nVidia drivers (182.08)
Cleared the CMOS
Installed an older MSI 8600GT card

I've talked to Microsoft who pretty much said...It's nVidia's fault, XFX's fault, or Acer's fault.
I've talked to Acer who pretty much said...It's nVidia's fault, XFX's fault, or Microsoft's fault
I've talked to nVidia who pretty much said...It's XFX's fault, Microsoft's fault, or Acer's fault.
And I've talked to XFX who pretty much said...We're not to blame

Still my resolution is 1024 x 768 maximum. I've read tons of forums with the common theme, "Vista 64 won't give me my resolution". I don't remember having this problem when I was running XP. But then, why did it work more than once, even for just a little while, with Vista 64?

Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Oh, I can get a close to it if I uninstall all the drivers, but then, my video cards aren't working. And as usual, Vista takes it upon itself to install a driver for it, taking my resolution back to 1024 x 768.

Until I can get it fixed, anyone up for some one on one?

I think it's your card drivers:

I'm a little worried about this sequence you stated:

Installed the Vista 64 drivers that came with the video cards.
Installed the latest nVidia drivers (182.08)
Cleared the CMOS
Installed an older MSI 8600GT card


I'm not sure why you cleared the CMOS.

But I think this will sort you out.

Download latest driver that exactly matches your video card/save to disc
Remove drivers for video card and re-boot.
Your system should default to low res display.
Install driver you downloaded earlier.
Tweak settings.

Make sure you also have latest Monitor drivers installed too

OK, I think I got your number but, you must try it at your own risk. I have the same exact LCD monitor as you have and I was having the same exact issues until I realized that my monitor's drivers DO NOT PLAY WELL with Vista.

I decided to try a different Vista driver from a different monitor and so far, I am happy as a pig on... well, you know!

First, Download the latest drivers from Nvidia into a folder you can recognize later...
GeForce Release 182

Second, download the drivers below...
AcerPanAm.com/us

The above drivers are for the AL2616WD monitor and thus far, I have been using them for more than 6 months I think (knock on wood) on my Vista x64 with no ill problems.

OK, if you know how to install/uninstall drivers proceed to do so with your video drivers, make sure you also uninstall the PhysX drivers as well, restart and run Nvidia Driver Sweeper for good measure.

After you have install your video drivers, proceed to the folder where you downloaded your Monitor Vista drivers, double click or Uncompress the file in the same folder. If I remember correctly it will open an XP & Vista folder.

Go to Device Manager and under Monitor, check to see what kind of device you have, it should read something like Generic PnP monitor, double click on it, go to the Drivers Tab and click on Update drivers, follow the prompts until you get to a point where it will tell you to look for your own drivers and you'll see a button that reads "Have Disk", click on it and point to the Vista folder where your new downloaded files are. It will choose the correct .INF and let it run.

Reboot just for fun and you should be ok now, this is of course, counting on the fact that you install your video drivers correctly. Even if you install/uninstall it incorrectly, it is an easy fix.

Again, hope that helps, post back and let us know how you do.