Solved Monitor Driver Won't install/Wrong Refresh Rate

Hope you guys can help me as I'm going nuts! This is my system:

EVGA 790i FTW, Core2Duo E8400, EVGA GTX295 181.22s, 2x150gb WD Raptors, 2x200gb SATA, 4gb G.Skill DDR3 1600, OCZ 700W PS, HP DVD-RW, X-Fi 64mb Pro, 22" NEC Fe2111SB, Vista64 SP1

I have all of a sudden found that at my res of 1600x1200 I can no longer have any refresh rate over 60MHz. The Nvidia Control Panel sees the right monitor name but Vista does not. I try to install the drivers for my monitor and Vista says that the general pnp ones are best and won't let me. In the NCP I can see the refresh rate of 85MHz for my resolution, which I always could use until recently, but when I switch to it the resolution drops down to 800x600! I've tried refreshforce and refreshlock programs but they won't work as I have the dumb "General PNP" monitor for my monitor. The flickering is annoying and gives me a headache after a while so I hope someone can help me here. Thanks!

Are you sure you are using x64 drivers for your Monitor? Even if they say Vista compatible, it may just be for home 32 bit and not x64.

I have an Acer AL2216w and the only way for me to be able to use the Acer profile on Vista was installing the x64 drivers from a newer and different model, otherwise, Device Manager was showing me only Generic PnP Monitor drivers and the same error when I tried to install the drivers that came with the monitor's CD.

AstaLaVista said:

Are you sure you are using x64 drivers for your Monitor? Even if they say Vista compatible, it may just be for home 32 bit and not x64.

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Thanks for the reply. I can't find any 64bit ones for my monitor and wouldn't know which other one to try... The weird thing is that Vista found the correct monitor initially and all was working well. It may have gone wrong once I installed a game a couple of days ago.

Vista has its own drivers that should work for that monitor; so I seriously doubt it's a driver issue. A quick Google reveals that that's a CRT monitor? Not that it matters, just curious.

You also say "all of a sudden found that at my res of 1600x1200 I can no longer have any refresh rate over 60MHz."

Did it work before? Did you recently do a video driver update? And speaking of update, do you have the latest Nvidia drivers for the card?

At any rate, have you gone in Nvidia's control panel for the video card and checked the settings, particularly anything dealing with refresh rates? I don't own an Nvidia card so I can't tell you about its control panel settings.

Also, right click on your desktop, click "Personalize", click "Display Settings", then "Advanced", then "Monitor", double check that the "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display" box isn't checked and choose the refresh rate you want.

Nice monitor by the way. The photographer in me wishes I had one. Nothing like a good CRT monitor with its color depth.

Thanks for the reply!

sygnus21 said:

Vista has its own drivers that should work for that monitor; so I seriously doubt it's a driver issue. A quick Google reveals that that's a CRT monitor? Not that it matters, just curious.

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Yes, it's a CRT and Vista has its' own drivers that worked just fine previously and that's why I"m so perplexed as to why I can't get it to work now.

You also say "all of a sudden found that at my res of 1600x1200 I can no longer have any refresh rate over 60MHz."

Did it work before? Did you recently do a video driver update? And speaking of update, do you have the latest Nvidia drivers for the card?

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Sorry if I wasn't clear enough before, but in my post right above yours I wrote: "The weird thing is that Vista found the correct monitor initially and all was working well. It may have gone wrong once I installed a game a couple of days ago." I am using Nvidia's latest drivers.

At any rate, have you gone in Nvidia's control panel for the video card and checked the settings, particularly anything dealing with refresh rates? I don't own an Nvidia card so I can't tell you about its control panel settings.

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"The Nvidia Control Panel sees the right monitor name but Vista does not." And then "In the NCP I can see the refresh rate of 85MHz for my resolution, which I always could use until recently, but when I switch to it the resolution drops down to 800x600!" So I meant by that, I have gone into the control panel (Nvidia's) and sees my monitor, it shows me all the refresh rates for 1600x1200 that I can use but when I switch to 85MHz from 60MHz my resolution then drops down to 800x600 instead of staying at 1600x1200 with the 85MHz refresh rate. I can only use 60MHz at this resolution.

Also, right click on your desktop, click "Personalize", click "Display Settings", then "Advanced", then "Monitor", double check that the "Hide modes that this monitor cannot display" box isn't checked and choose the refresh rate you want.

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I've done that but the only selection available is 60MHz.

Nice monitor by the way. The photographer in me wishes I had one. Nothing like a good CRT monitor with its color depth.

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Thanks, I've really enjoyed this monitor for a couple of years now but this is bugging me to no end! I know, it's not the monitor's fault but am frustrated nevertheless.

Avatar13 said:

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough before, but in my post right above yours I wrote: "The weird thing is that Vista found the correct monitor initially and all was working well. It may have gone wrong once I installed a game a couple of days ago." I am using Nvidia's latest drivers.

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Well, at least you know the Vista driver worked for the monitor "before" installing whatever game you installed. What game was it BTW?

At any rate try this...

Uninstall the video card drivers then uninstall the monitor through device manager and reboot. let Vista install its default monitor drivers, reboot, then install the video card drivers. See what happens?

sygnus21 said:

Well, at least you know the Vista driver worked for the monitor "before" installing whatever game you installed. What game was it BTW?

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It was Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor.

At any rate try this...

Uninstall the video card drivers then uninstall the monitor through device manager and reboot. let Vista install its default monitor drivers, reboot, then install the video card drivers. See what happens?

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I had actually tried uninstalling the monitor and rebooting but it made no difference. Didn't bother with the video driver as it was working before and it still identified my monitor correctly even though Vista would not. After getting home from work I then tried the above and it worked! Sort of. I can now set the refresh rate to my monitor the way it was, at 85MHz but Vista thinks it's a different monitor from the one I have. But no problem, I know the various refresh rates for the different resolutions so I won't screw things up and it's almost exactly the same as mine. Thanks again for your help and suggestions!

Glad it worked. you can try using the older monitor drivers if you want the correct monitor's name. You can also look for the "correct" monitor color profile by installing the older drivers. Once the drivers are extracted, just click on the "ICM" profile and click install. Once that's done, go to the monitor's properties, click "Color Management", check the box that says "use my settings for this device" once that's done search the "Profiles associated with this device" and find the color profile, click it a click "add", then set it as default. That's it - you now have a color profile associated with the monitor.

Peace.

sygnus21 said:

You can try using the older monitor drivers if you want the correct monitor's name.

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Nope, won't work as they are for XP and not Vista. Searched for 64bit ones and came up empty. It's no big deal, as long as I can use the resolution and refresh rates that I want I'm happy! Thanks again.