Driver updates

[shankle]

My puter is 3+ years old and I have never updated any drivers but the
Nvidia quadro nvs 290. Getting a Black Screen at start up and can't find
a solution for it. Possibly the driver situation is the problem.
There are a ton of companies that want your money for driver updates
that I should be able to get from Dell. Dell's driver update page is a nightmare.
Spent hours trying to find the drivers for my puter. No Luck.
Thought you guys might have a suggestion or two.

Greatest crime in America is our Congress......

[dedndave]

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

under "Donwload Type", i see a few that may apply for that adapter

computer model ?
OS ?

[shankle]

Hi Dave,
275.65 seems to be the latest one that will work on my puter.
Doesn't solve the black screen though.

[Neil]

Does your monitor work? Is there another computer you can plug it into (old one, friends, relation) to check it works.

[dedndave]

with XP, it is fairly simple to modify the boot.ini file
with Vista and Win7, there is a command-line tool named BCDEdit.exe
if i were running Win7, i'd take the time to learn how to use it   :P
it looks somewhat daunting...
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721886%28WS.10%29.aspx

however, the boot options probably also exist somewhere in the regsitry
under XP, the key is...

Code Select Expand

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
writing a REG file may be an easier way to go

at any rate, you may want to try adding the following OS boot option...

Code Select Expand

/intel_iommu=off

further reading...
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/09/17/iommu-and-bios-woes/

either way - be careful not to make a mess   :bg

[shankle]

Not to worry. Before I would dive into something like you suggest I would
make a backup with my trusted Clonezille-live. It hasn't let me down yet
and it's Freeeeeeee. :bg
Oh, by the way I upgraded my Nvidia driver to the latest, thinking the
3 year old driver might be the problem. No such luck still looking at a pretty
Black Screen.... The Dell ultrasharp monitor has been working flawlessly
since day one.

[MichaelW]

I used to maintain a number of Dell systems for a small business, and I recall having problems with an ATI display adapter that would not work with the drivers from ATI because the adapter was a Dell OEM part. I ended up having to get the proper drivers from Dell.

[shankle]

Thought I posted this but I don't see it so here goes again.
I think the problem is solved. I have this quirk about updating
drivers. I have a hands off approach.
Well I bit the bullet and went on the Dell site and downloaded
a Vista driver 32 bit for the Bios. I was running a03 and the new one
was a11. This reduced the BLACK Screen to 6 seconds. Quite
tolerable. I'll try several other driver updates now that I am an
expert :bg.

[dedndave]

it's always a scary deal to update the BIOS   :bg
you never know what will stop working

anyway, it sounds like you licked the problem
the "intel_iommu=off" boot option is actually a way to disable a BIOS feature that is used with intel graphics chipsets
it is likely that Dell initially used a standard set of code that included it
when they got feedback of the issue, they figured out that it wasn't needed for nVidia adapters

i have a sony machine
there is a BIOS update, but i cannot use it unless i also upgrade to vista or win7
in other words, the only way to make this machine properly dual boot xp and
win7 (for example) is to dig into the BIOS code and make my own - lol