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I don't normally
rant about hardware issues but I guess at this time my experiences of the past
three days might actually save someone else some time.
It all started out
with my decision to buy a (lowest price) iiyama 19" TFT providing me with
1600x1200 which I planned to operate as my main screen in a dualhead setup.
Unfortunately, when
used with my Matrox G450, the display was way too blurry (at least by my
standards, which are quite high. I sat there with a magnifying glass comparing
the display with my Vaio's built-in TFT). I therefore decided to switch to DVI and
shell out some bucks for a digital dual head card.
I somehow ended up
with buying an Asus V8420 which is based on a GeForce4 Ti4200 and which somehow
is a pretty weird card for a non-gamer like me. However, the result was
brilliant. Don't ever try to run 1600x1200 on analog output as your combination
of display adapter, cable and LCD panel might not be able to sync
correctly. (I tried three different analog display adapters and two
cables.).
But now, the
problems really started: I've been running W2K3 Server Enterprise Edition for
some days and, to say the least, it doesn't seem as if this operating system is
about to become the main platform for games. It seems as if Asus therefore
decided not to provide too much support for it at the given time. After
installing the WXP drivers (and well after confirming a hundred "not
supported. not digitally signed."-message boxes) strange things
happend:
Windows greated me
with about five "Invalid instruction in RunDll.exe" message
boxes after each reboot. And, strangely enough, when right-clicking on the
desktop and hovering over "Arrange Icons By ... " or "New..." my system locked
up for exactly 10 seconds with CSRSS.EXE taking up 99% CPU. I used Filemon, Regmon and Ethereal but couldn't get anywhere near the
source of this problem. The only thing absolutely consistent was the wait time
of exactly 10 seconds. I guess one has to be Mark Russinovich to know what's going on
here.
As I'm neither Mark
nor did I know what has been going on here, I instead decided to try and install
the original NVidia drivers. Great wonders: it works. I only get one more
"Invalid instruction" when trying to use NVidia's tray icon about which I don't
care too much. No more 10 second delays ...
Lessons learnt
in the past week:
- When running TFTs
in 1600x1200 use DVI. Don't use analog - it sucks.
- When running an
Asus display adapter on W2K3, use the Nvidia drivers.
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