No display adapter in Devive Manager

[Zoe]

OS: XP Professional. Pentium 4 -1.7 ghz

I have a Nvdia Ge-Force MX 400 video card. Recently it seemed that my computer was really slow on refreshing the screen so I went to Device Manager to check that I had the latest drivers but there was no heading "Display Adaptors"

Hmmmm. I checked my husbands computer as he has the same video card as me and sure enough in Device Manager there is a heading called Display Adapters and underneath it the Ge-Force MX 400 was listed.

I went to the Nvidia home page and downloaded the latest XP drivers for my video card and clicked on the 'Setup.exe' and installed them. It installed OK but it didn't make any difference. I also searched for new hardware but Windows didn't find any. I specifically searched for Display Adapters but still none were found.

When I boot, the very first thing that appears on the screen is the mention of Nvidia Ge-Force MX 400, 64mb.

Preceeding this problem I had a lot of trouble with crashes, blue screens and unable to boot on occasions. This problem was tracked down to faulty RAM which has now been replaced.

The questions I am asking are:
Why isn't there any mention of 'Display Adaptors' in Device Manager? I can't update the drivers if I can't see my video card there.
Why, if it says I have no display adapter, why can I still see stuff on the screen?
How can I remove the display adapter so I can start fresh.?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.


Zoe

[Rally]

Start by booting into save mode and checking to see if it is listed then
2. Most update packages are full installs you do not need device manager to update the driver that was done by the software you installed.
3. Check to see if it is installed by looking into display properties
let us know!

[tomsolomon]

Does your PC have an onboard graphics card? If so you need to dissable this in the bios before your Nvida card will work. Windows will automatically detect your new display adaptor due to the fact that your monitor should be plugged into it. But if your onboard is still active this will cause a hardware conflict. Failing this download Nvidas controll panel or powerstrip and see if this software detects the card. This may solve your problem. You can also try problem solving to check your setup is correct also run dxdiag, as this can detect if your system settings are correct.
tomsolomon...

[curtybob]

if you right click on your desktop>properties>settings>advanced button, do you have a tab for your video card? this should tell you if the card is the one being used. just noticed that rally already mentioned this. sorry rally.
also in device manager there is an option to show hidden devices in the "view"menu at the top. don't know why your card would be hidden, but it is worth a shot.
when you say it was slow to refresh, is this happening during gaming, or is the sluggishness happening during regular internet or office-type work. if this happens during regular use, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and see if something is hogging your resources. you never know. good luck.

[Rally]

Did not even think about the hidden stuff, you are correct it is most certainly worth a shot.
There are always exceptions to the rule.

[Zoe]

Thanks for all your help. I tried everything you all suggested but to no avail.
My computer was running like a piece of shite anyway so in the end I made the drastic decision to reformat and start again.
After formating and reinstalling XP the video card is now recognised in Device Manager and working like a dream.

Best I now get on with reinstalling everything else.
How come no matter how hard you try to remember to backup everything before the big scary format.... you always forget something. Never mind, what I lost I'll have to learn to live without...LOL

thanks all
regards Zoe

[Rick75230]

I just fixed this problem on two machines. (Actually, one physical machine with two hard disks, each of which can boot Windows.) The problem suddenly appeared with two different NVidia AGP cards, the GeForce MX4000 (64Mb) and MX440 (32Mb).

I have a Soyo Motherboard SY-P4VGA with VIA Technology chips. I'm running WinXP Home with Service Packs 2 and 3.

The problem turned out to be the VIA CPU to AGP Controller driver, a 2003 version from VIA Technologies. When I rolled back the driver to the Microsoft version suddenly Display Adapter was back. These are the ones that work:

Ver. 5.2.2600.5512 date 7/1/2001
C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\pci.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\VIAAGP.SYS

*** Microsoft sends the VIA Technologies driver as an Automatic Update. ***

[Rick75230]

To access this:

Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager -> System devices ->
VIA CPU to AGP Controller
Right-click -> Properties, Select Driver Tab