Horrible, horrible, horrible X1900XT problem: no signal over DVI since driver upgrade

[roadie]

Hullo Everyone,

In a few free moments I had over the weekend I attempted to upgrade the drivers on my system from 6.2 to 6.3. Before I did this everything was working perfectly. However, since doing it I am unable to get a signal over DVI once the Windows XP 64bit Professional Edition loading screen with the scrolling bar has finished.

This is immensly frustrating, as it means that I cannot run in Windows with the driver loaded and therefore lack any kind of hardware acceleration. In fact, the only way that I was actually able to get into Windows after this occured was by running in safe mode and uninstalling the driver. DVI works fine under safe mode and in normal Windows with no driver.

I have tried rolling back the driver and different drivers but they all reproduce the same issue. I am at a complete loss as to what has caused this but other people seem to have had a similar issue, albeit with a different card:

Please look here

I have posted this on ATI and Sapphire customer care but hopefully someone will be able to help me here too.

Thanks

 

[roadie]

hmm. never heard of the problems, but cant you just use the 6.2's if it was working perfectly?

I tried rolling back the driver, uninstalling the driver under safe mode and running Driver Cleaner Pro but even with older drivers, including 6.2 the issue is still repoduced. It is bizarre.

 

[roadie]

If it's a Dual DVI card have you tried the other port?

Yes, I have but the issue still persists. I am incredibly frustrated by it.

 

[roadie]

As far as I am aware everything is set as being exactly how it was before I tried installing the new driver. Also DVI works when under safe mode and in normal XP with no driver installed. Does anyone else have any ideas?

 

[roadie]

Looks like it could be 'alternate DVI Operational Mode' in the CCC.

Read this, it maybe some help?

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17551385

Yes, that could be it! Perhaps I will have to dig out an old analogue lead to screw about in Windows with the driver loaded and then switch back to DVI if I have sorted it out? I will have to try this, although it will probably be tomorrow evening by the time I get around to it.

 

[roadie]

Looks like it could be 'alternate DVI Operational Mode' in the CCC.

This is a dumb question but where is 'alternative DVI operational mode' within the latest catalysts?

Following some advice from ATI tech support last night, I installed the 6.4's, hoping that they might alleviate my problems. The only slight change that they had was that now before the monitor loses signal, I get a random pattern of checker boards, multiple colours and other artifacts.

I was able to use the monitor using its analogue input.

The CCC did seem to be reporting my monitor wrong - under the maximum resolution that it is supposed to supprt, it stated 1920*1080. Obviously this is wrong for a 19" TFT with a native res of 1280*1024. I manually set this res as the max in the CCC. However, still no luck.

As a last resort I reinstalled Windows, and you guess it, the computer is still buggered.

I am at a complete loss as to what to do next. I will pursue advice from here, Sapphire and ATI in hope of fixing it so please help me if you can.

Thanks.

 

[roadie]

If OP has one of both ( or same monitor with vga on one input and DVI on the other) then I could imagine he would then be able to "use" the ~alternative dvi mode~ check box to clear it and hopefully his problem

Yes, I have one monitor hooked up through DVI and VGA. I will have to try this on Monday evening when I get back to London. However, I don't remember seeing this option previously when I had the monitor hooked up this way.

On another note, Sapphire and ATI tech support have been downright awful. I have given them a wealth of information in regards to what the problem is and what I have attempted to do to fix it, and the best they can come up with is 'uninstall the drivers and install 6.4'. When I saw this is what they had suggested, I was very, very angry. I despise stupidty in any walks of life but that was almost too much.

 

[roadie]

Slight update. I can't see any settings for "alternative DVI mode" with both VGA and DVI hooked up so there's no dice there.

Following further investigation, it seems like this may be an EDID problem. There have been lots of people having similar issues with HDTV's but not monitors it seems. I think there is a conflict between what the monitor is reporting in it's EDID and what the drivers are reading. Here is a screenshot of what I am talking about:

SCREENSHOT

(Please excuse the desktop, it's yet another re-installation of Windows.)

What I am going to do now is work with ViewSonic regarding this. I will continue to work with ATI too. Hopefully I can get this sorted out soon, as it's driving me mad.

 

[roadie]

Hi, thanks for posting the image, that's really helpful. The driver doesn't detect the Digital input of my monitor at all, even with it and the VGA connection plugged in at the same time. Because of this I don't have the 'Digital Panel Properties' menu, which is obviously frustrating.

I have a feeling that I will either need to RMA the graphics card or the monitor. However, I am not sure which. Hopefully ViewSonic and ATI tech support can help me sort this out without having to resort to dealing with RMA's...

 

[roadie]

I have the ViewSonic driver for Xp x64 loaded, which is being picked up when I use VGA.

DVI works perfectly when the ATI driver isn't loaded so it's odd that it doesn't work when the driver is loaded. Mu best guess from the research I've done is that there is a conflict in the EDID that the monitor is reporting and what the graphics card is reading, as I have illustrated above. However, it's above my ability to fix it.

DDC seems to stand for "Display Data Channel":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel

One of my housemates might have a computer suitable to testing the monitor over DVI but I've not seen him for a week or so. When I next see him, I'll ask.

 

[roadie]

Right, I am home now. However, no sign of the phantom flatmate. When I next see him, I'll ask to do two things. First of all to try my monitor out over DVI if his computer can output it, and secondly to use his monitor with mine to see if I can get some DVI mode goodness.

I have received another reply from ATI. Here's what they have to say:

It does sound like the card you have is defective and should be replaced. If you install the previous drivers that you were using that worked and it does the same thing, the card needs to be replaced.

Thoughts? I am not totally sure it is the card personally and will try all available avenues to fix it without having to RMA it, which would be a pain.

This is what MonInfo reports:

Monitor
Windows description......... ViewSonic VX912
Manufacturer description.... VX912
Manufacturer................ ViewSonic
————————————————————————————
Plug and Play ID............ VSC8D1A
Serial number............... PPE050200086
EDID data source............ Registry (stored)
————————————————————————————
Manufacture date............ 2005, ISO week 2
EDID revision............... 1.3
Display type and signal..... Analog 0.700,0.300 (1.0V p-p)
Sync input support.......... Separate, Composite, Sync on green
Screen size................. 380 x 300 mm (~21")
Power management............ Active off/sleep

Color characteristics
Display gamma............... 2.20
Red chromaticity............ Rx 0.634 - Ry 0.354
Green chromaticity.......... Gx 0.287 - Gy 0.621
Blue chromaticity........... Bx 0.138 - By 0.077
White point (default)....... Wx 0.313 - Wy 0.329

Timing characteristics
VESA GTF support............ Not supported
Horizontal scan range....... 30-82kHz
Vertical scan range......... 50-85Hz
Video bandwidth............. 140MHz
Extension blocks............ n/a
Timing recommendation #1.... 1280x1024 at 60Hz
Modeline................ "1280x1024" 108.000 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync

Standard timings supported
640 x 480 at 60Hz - IBM VGA
640 x 480 at 67Hz - Mac II
640 x 480 at 72Hz - VESA
640 x 480 at 75Hz - VESA
640 x 480 at 85Hz - VESA
720 x 400 at 70Hz - IBM VGA
800 x 600 at 56Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 60Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 72Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 75Hz - VESA
800 x 600 at 85Hz - VESA
832 x 624 at 75Hz - Mac II
1024 x 768 at 60Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 70Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 75Hz - VESA
1024 x 768 at 85Hz - VESA
1152 x 864 at 75Hz - VESA
1152 x 870 at 75Hz - Mac II
1280 x 1024 at 60Hz - VESA
1280 x 1024 at 60Hz - ViewSonic
1280 x 1024 at 75Hz - VESA

Raw EDID base
00: 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 5A 63 1A 8D 01 01 01 01
10: 02 0F 01 03 0E 26 1E 78 2E 68 75 A2 5A 49 9F 23
20: 13 50 54 BF EF 80 81 80 71 4F 61 59 45 59 31 59
30: 01 01 01 01 01 01 30 2A 00 98 51 00 2A 40 30 70
40: 13 00 78 2D 11 00 00 1E 00 00 00 FF 00 50 50 45
50: 30 35 30 32 30 30 30 38 36 0A 00 00 00 FD 00 32
60: 55 1E 52 0E 00 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 FC
70: 00 56 58 39 31 32 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 3C

Display adapter
Adapter description......... Radeon X1900 Series
Adapter device ID........... 0x72491002
Display settings............ 1280x1024, 32bpp

User/computer information
Registered user name........ Oliver Woolf
Registered organization..... Home
Network user name........... Administrator
Network computer name....... HOME-3MB5R6SA5J
Windows version ............ Windows XP
Windows build .............. 5.02.3790 Service Pack 1
Installation date .......... 17/04/2006 12:00:00

Is there anything I need to act on regarding this?

Thanks everyone,

Oliver

 

[roadie]

Back it up a bit. Try the moninfo when the DVI is working i.e safe mode. The above is a normal report from the VGA, nothing special. Maybe you need to select the secondary output, there is a drop down select when two or more are available.

Unfortunately the monitor doesn't seem to be detected in safe mode, here's the moninfo read out:

Monitor
Hardware information........ n/a

Display adapter
Adapter description......... Primary port
Display settings............ 1280x1024, 32bpp

User/computer information
Registered user name........ Oliver Woolf
Registered organization..... Home
Network user name........... Administrator
Network computer name....... HOME-3MB5R6SA5J
Windows version ............ Windows XP
Windows build .............. 5.02.3790 Service Pack 1
Installation date .......... 17/04/2006 12:00:00

What does this mean? I assume that it points to my monitor definitely being the source of the problem?

Thanks,

Oliver

 

[roadie]

Hold on. Did you disconnect the VGA?

Get back to that point and run moninfo. If you did already you have a monitor problem.

Yeah, I did disconnect VGA to make sure that it used DVI when booting into safe mode

What do you think the next step should be?

Thanks for all your help by the way,

Oliver

 

[roadie]

Ok, thanks for the mnitor read out. I will definitely try to get my flatmate to help me when I next see him.

However, I will also call ViewSonic UK support tomorrow to try and sort this out ASAP.

Cheers,

Oliver

 

[roadie]

Right, just got off a call with ViewSonic support. The chap I spoke to thinks it is a problem with the graphics card. He suggested the following:

• Obviously try the monitor on another computer, which I'll do ASAP.
• Reduce DVI blanking, which may be the "alternate DVI mode" thing suggested previously. I can't do this at the moment but will try to when stealing my flatmates monitor.
• Try different DVI cable

I think this whole thing rests on my flatmate and whether he has a DVI output on his computer. I don't think we have any DVI compatible PC's at work, even though we're all running LCD's.

 

[roadie]

Right, I managed to get hold of my flatmate tonight. Unfortunately his PC doesn't do DVI so I've been unable to test my monitor. I did however attach his monitor to my computer so I could run multi monitor to see if there were any difference in what I was able to manipulate in the CCC with my monitor attached over DVI. No dice here too.

I have played around a bit in Powerstrip and one have identified a couple of things that may help me if other people can try them out too. Within the "monitor information" page, at the bottom right there is a drop down menu giving options from where to read the monitor data.

I am unable to get information from the "read information direct from monitor" option and it gives me an error message saying "DDC communication with the monitor failed or is not supported". I assume that this is because I am running in analogue mode at the moment?

Is there any way that other people can try this option over both DVI and VGA and let me know the results? I think your feedback would be really helpful in understanding my problem better.

I also have tried the "Update EDID" option. I have the registered version of Powerstrip so I am able to do so. However, when I do this, I get the error message "A valied EDID was not detected on the selected monitor. Do you want to scan the bus for a EDID EEPROM?" I hit yes, and get another error message "A valid EEPROM was not found".

Is there any way that anyone else will be able to try this too?

Thanks,

Oliver

 

[roadie]

Well I tried this on my machine at work, which is a Dell Optiplex GX280 with some onboard graphics (Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family) connected via VGA to a Dell E173FP.

That's able to read the EDID directly from the monitor just fine so it seems that EDID is able to be transmitted over VGA. Therefore, it definitely looks like my EDID has become corrupted in some way.

I am going to try and get further help over that the Powerstrip forums and also call up ViewSonic and add this information to my support ticket.

 

[roadie]

I have been without Internet access at home for something like 5 days so sorry for the late response.

In the end the guy at the Powerstrip forum said that the EDID data that was being generated was infact wrong. I called up Viewsonic and they sent out a replacement monitor, which worked perfectly over DVI. However, it had a dead pixel right in the middle of the screen and none of the buttons on the front worked so I called Viewsonic again and they sent out another monitor, which is fine.

I don't actually have 3 monitors now; they took the faulty ones away.