Nvidia Driver Problem: No Start Menu or Icons in W7

[Raelthorne]

Hi folks,

Built a new PC about 4 weeks ago and all was going well until tonight. I checked my email about 4 pm and all was well, switched on the PC about 9pm and the machine booted, started win7 and then just sat there showing my wallpaper and nothing else, no start menu bar, no icons. What was strange was if I pressed the usual combinations of keys, then I could shut the machine down but it displayed nothing except the wallpaper. Incidentally if I pressed ctrl, alt, del, the screen would go black.

I tried repair, restore etc but to no avail. I decided to do a full reinstall and the inital install worked, however after installing Nvidia driver 280.26 the problem returned. When I removed the drivers in safe mode, the problem went away but I'm looking at the resolution consistent with an inital install (600*800). I performed a win7 update online and it installed Nvidia driver 275.33 and the same problem occured. Desktop wallpaper, no start menu, task bar or icons.

Can anyone think of anthing to help? My system spec is as follows:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz with Noctua NH-D14
Asus P8P67 PRO (B3 REVISION)
Corsair XMS3 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel
Asus GeForce GTX 580 DirectCU II 1536MB GDDR5
2 X WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache in Raid0 config
Corsair HX 850W PSU

Incidentally, I got a Dell U2410 on Tuesday to replace my old monitor which failed, if the info is pertinent.

Please help!

 

[Raelthorne]

Just as an update, removed the 580gtx and installed an 8800gtx I had from my old machine. Card appears to worked properly and Win7 is displaying properly.

Have now removed the 8800gtx, reinstalled the 580, made sure all connections etc are 100% secure etc and am trying 280.26 drivers.

The system starts properly, recognises the card and the desktop is appearing normally.

Anyone got any ideas why this happened or what the cause is?

 

[arc@css]

I've had no problems but some people have reported them with the 280.xx drivers.

 

[Raelthorne]

I've had no problems but some people have reported problems with the 280.xx drivers.

Am having the problem with 280.26 drivers and 275.33.

The reinstallation didn't solve it unfortunately I restarted the machine to see if everything was okay and I'm back to square one. Desktop wallpaper and nothing else.

Anyone got any suggestions?