The Red Brick Times

A plea for help from all those tech heads out there. I just received a FREE computer from Erin's current boyfriend(He's an IT guy for Arbitron in Baltimore and it seems that they upgrade computers about every fifteen minutes without ever getting rid of the old ones so he has a stack of them in his basement) Anyway the one I got has Windows XP Pro/SP2, a Pentium 4 1.5 gig CPU and a nVidia Vanta/Vanta LT graphics card. The problem is that with my old nVidia Riva card I could adjust color balance, brightness and contrast directly. This new one doesn't seem to offer that option and the display is kind of dark and muddy unless its high contrast like black text on white. I've gone through all the options under Display on Control Panel and have come up empty. Any help?

Posted 12:45 PM by A. O. (17) comments

Comments:

See if you can upgrade the driver. Identify exactly the card you have and driver version number then go to their site.

# posted by whatley : June 11, 2007 1:28 PM

The name I listed is the exact name. It's a low rent graphics card developed for XP based on the TNT architecture. the nVidia website lists no specific driver for this product. Hell they don't even list the product. You have manually enter a search for "Vanta".

# posted by A. O. : June 11, 2007 2:30 PM

I did an advanced Google search on the phrase "nVidia Vanta/Vanta LT" and got a list of various driver versions. The latest seems to be 7.1.8.9 and can be downloaded from a variety of places. What version do you have?

# posted by whatley : June 12, 2007 7:12 AM

To check driver version, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management,Device Manager, expand Nvidia Network Bus Enumerator, right click Nvidia Network Bus Enumerator and choose Properties. Go to the Driver tab and look at Driver Version. My computer has a cheapo WinFast PX6200TD video card that used Nvidia drivers, and the version is shown there. Once you have downloaded a new driver (noted by Russ), and have the new driver file saved on your desktop, you can click the "Update Driver" button on the same window where the Driver Version is shown, and point to the file you downloaded as the source for the update. Note that there is also a "Roll Back Driver" choice in case the new driver is problematic.

# posted by Andy : June 12, 2007 8:01 AM

A change. Choose the "Display Adapters" in Computer Management and check the driver provider and version therre. I also have an embedded Nvidia networking controller on the motherboard and erroneously noted that driver in the comment above. All else is OK.

# posted by Andy : June 12, 2007 8:08 AM

How goes it?

# posted by whatley : June 13, 2007 8:52 AM

Or is the "Free" computer worth its cost?

# posted by Andy : June 13, 2007 11:37 PM

Thanks for the input guys. Still having some problem. It seems nVidia doesn't really want you to upgrade drivers or even know that this particular form of graphics card exists. I downloaded the driver file from their website (after I finally found it, the readme file said that,yes, in fact, it was for this particular model, among others. The installation program then promptly informed me that there was no compatible hardware on my computer and shut itself off. The current driver allows no internal color or brightness management that I can find. My seven year old RivaTnT model has extensive controls accessible through the display settings dialog box.

The rest of the machine is fine. Its faster and the OS is compatible with most of the current software whereas Win98 is no longer supported by anyone and a lot of new programs, particularly browser utilities, just don't work on it.

I do a lot of stuff with graphics and photos so control the onscreen appearance is necessary. If I can't straighten this out I might look into moving my old card into the new machine.

Is there any way to gang the two machines together so I can transfer files and settings without making a bunch of discs?

# posted by A. O. : June 19, 2007 10:52 AM

The Files and Settings Transfer Wizard utility in Windows XP should get you started. Two ways to do it: 1) disk transfer of files and settings, or 2) Crossover cable connection between computer ports. To access the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then click Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Start on the new computer. Per Microsoft, the old computer can be running Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT 4.0, 2000 or XP (32-bit). I have used it between two XP-SP2 (32-bit) systems, so cannot speak to the other older operating systems. You will need to transfer the email files separately, I have found.

# posted by Andy : June 20, 2007 6:24 AM

Note: The cable transfer method uses two serial ports on the two computers. A "null modem" cable is required, one that sends the output pins on computer A's serial port to the input pins on computer B's serial port, and vice versa. A straight serial cable (like you would use to connect the computer to an external modem or other hardware) would have both computers shouting at each other and nobody listening. Since many new computers do not provide serial ports any more (slow, old technology), use the disk transfer. A single CD-R served in my case. The Wizard should not be used to transfer massive computer software files (you install that from the OE disks), but only the critical and unique data files that you select. If you have used the default locations when installing new applications and creating files, most of the required files should reside somewhere within 'My Documents'. Else you need to search and tag the data files for burning to the CD-R or CD-RW (whichever you are using).

# posted by Andy : June 20, 2007 6:37 AM

It occurs to me that the computer may not even recognize your video adapter card, and may be running on the default low-res driver that comes with the operating system. The clue is that the driver installation said "No compatible hardware". When you check the Device Manager (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Device Manager), in the right-hand window (the details pane), do you see any listing with a yellow question mark, or with a red X? The yellow question mark indicates that the computer sees something, but has no driver for it. The red X means the device is disabled.

# posted by Andy : June 20, 2007 6:48 AM

I checked in device manager and there are no flags and it tells me the device is operating properly. I'm stating to think its just a crappy card since this was used as a work station for an IT guy. Everything else is OK but this is driving me nuts. All the colors are murky and dark and the images are all dark and really high contrast.

# posted by A. O. : June 21, 2007 11:05 AM

Two more remotely possible obvious things, and then I would try to put the card from your "old" computer in the "new" machine.

First, does the motherboard on the "new" machine have its own integral VGA connector (could you hook up a monitor without installing a video card in one of the expansion slots)? Second, have you tried unplugging and reseating the video card in the slot, or even moving it to another compatible slot (probably not help, since there is legible output, no matter how bleary, from this card to your monitor). Beyond that, I am not sure how hardware things like horizontal and vertical sync frequency or voltage level incompatibilities could cause tonal anomalies. If the monitor and old computer work well together, that seems to clear the monitor, signal cable and monitor power supply. Evidence does seem to implicate the new computer's video source.

The A-to-B swapping of a known good card and its drivers (from your old computer) is the next logical step. Likewise, see if the suspect card from the new computer will carry the problem to the old computer (if a compatible slot is available).

# posted by Andy : June 24, 2007 10:52 AM

Wait! Murky colors, high contrast...could the IT tech have been vision-impaired? There is a setting in XP Pro that purposely sets high contrast and limited colors for vision enhancement (for those with macular degeneration or other visual differences. Control panel, Accessibility Options, Display tab. Be sure that the "Use high contrast" button is not checked.

# posted by Andy : June 24, 2007 11:02 AM

I haven't had a chance to spend the time swapping out components, but that seems to be the next step.

I tried the high contrast option just to see what it did. What it does is make the background black with white lettering, very stylish but not helpful.

The nVidia info for the new drivers I downloaded(the ones that can't see the hardware) say to uninstall all the existing drivers and direct you to the control panel/add-remove programs. Problem is the driver is not listed there and hunting down all the nVidia files in Windows Explorer I find the drivers(I think, therefore I am . . .not sure)but no uninstall .exe which seems to be part of most programs.

So to sum up the lit says get rid of the old drivers but there doesn't appear to be any way to do that (aside - how will I install the new one if the one providing the graphics signal is gone as in what will show up on the screen?)

Last consideration is that I may have the downloaded files residing in the wrong directory but can't seem to figure out what the right one would be.

And you thought Lief Ericsson had saga! I'm thinking that getting a boat and doing some old fashioned plundering and pillage might be a lot easier.

# posted by A. O. : June 25, 2007 11:13 AM

Hang on - I am sharpening my axe and brewing some honey mead. I'll be right with you. Will we be overrunning the English today, or should we start with Microsoft?

If you kill all of the display adapter drivers, Windows defaults to the VGA format. The first step when the comuter is switched on is a "POST" (Power on Self-Test). It checks keyboard, CPU, RAM and display adapter availability, then gives one "BEEP" and passes control to the Operating System (that's when you see the first Windows logo). If you hear the single "BEEP" you should get video output, even in the absence of a vendor-specific driver for your card.

# posted by Andy : June 25, 2007 5:07 PM

You mentioned earlier that you went through all of the combinations of options in the Display Properties (specifically Themes, Appearance and Settings tabs). I have set some pretty unreadable combinations on my own computers sometimes. It is frustrating to not be able to watch over your shoulder. I hate to chase a supposed hardware solution if there is a software glitch lurking in a dusty corner.

The video driver update is still the best software bet. After the driver update, the card swap remains the next step. If your "old" video card is aged 7 years, it may not have the same slot requirements as the "new" card. Old one could be either an ISA (or EISA or VESA) which is very old video technology (state-of-art for I-486 era), a PCI which is still found on current motherboards as a general-purpose expansion slot, or AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) which is a faster dedicated video slot. Newest technology is PCI-express (PCIe) which come in four flavors, x1, x4, x8 and x16, which describes the number of data "channels" present. A PCIeX1 (PCI Express by one) slot is physically very short, while a PCIeX16 (PCI Express by 16) slot is full length. Gamers use motherboards with dual PCIeX16 slots that work together (on SLI-ready motherboards) to provide lighting effects, texturing, rapid movement and realistic blood and gore.

# posted by Andy : June 25, 2007 5:39 PM

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