Thread: Dual monitor screen corruption

I currently have W7 RC in dual boot with XPSP2. My system runs a Geforce 7900GTX (with latest drivers) into two identical Viewsonic VP930 monitors, spanning the desktop with no problems.

I have previously dual booted XPSP2 on this sytem with ubuntu and found that ubuntu would handle a spanned desktop fine.
I have also previously dual booted XPSP2 with Vista, but scrubbed the Vista OS because of the same issue that I am now experiencing with W7:

W7 works fine with only 1 monitor attached.
As soon as I attach the DVI to the 2nd monitor, the primary monitor display is scrambled, showing a blue/green pattern, as though it has lost synch or is being driven at the wrong frequency. This happens even if the 2nd monitor is powered down. If the 2nd monitor is powered up, the same thing happens, and the 2nd monitor remains blank.

If I boot up W7 with both monitors attached, the display scrambles when the logon screen should appear.

If I start W7 in safe mode with both monitors attached, they both work fine in mirrored mode.

Steps I have already taken:

• Installed latest nvidia drivers
• Upgraded BIOS to latest
• Disabled Aero Glass
• Ensured running correct monitor drivers
• Checked that the TMM Task is not running (as the Transient Multi-Monitor Manager can sometimes interfere with nvidia driver settings)
• Tried using different combinations of VP930s (perm any 2 from 3)

I'm now running out of options. I thought about upgrading the video card to a 260GTX, but I'm not keen to spend 140GBP when a) there's no guarantee it will work and b) I'm quite happy running XP with dual screens for now. I would like to upgrade to W7 when the final release is proved to be stable, but not at the expense of losing half my desktop!

Any helpful suggestions greatly appreciated!

***edit
Changed vertical frequency to 75 from 60 in nVidia control panel, and ended up with identical effect of stripy screen. Therefore it appears that connecting the 2nd monitor causes the video card to lose/change its frequency (also confirmed by descriptions of other users with problems changing screen resolution in games etc.)

Tried using Powerstrip to lock the vertical refresh rate, but no success (also Powerstrip kept randomly crashing when changing options, so had to run in compatibility mode).

Have just dl'ed the latest VP930 Vista drivers from ViewSonic - so will try these tomorrow.
Also, saw a post in the TechNet forums which suggested uninstalling nvidia drivers, changing te compatibility setting of the installer to XPSP2, and reinstalling.
Discouraging to see how many people have similar unsolved problems with Geforce 7s, maybe I should consider an ATI Radeon 4850 or similar?
/edit***


T

I am having the exact same problem. I have the same video card, and I took all the same steps to remedy it. But my refusal to give up and incessant tinkering yielded some results. I changed the color depth on my second monitor to 16 bit (as opposed to the default 32.) and it works perfectly!

The only disadvantage is that Aero is disabled. but if you go to 'Personalization' and do the Aero trouble shooter it enables Aero, restores the color depth on the monitor and works perfectly. Well it works perfectly for about 3 seconds. Once you close some windows it reverts back to the broken corrupted looking fragmentation form before.

Thats my two cents, any more information would be greatly appreciated.