Windows 7 Total Noob needs help

[Apis4]

Hi guys and girls.. I am a brand new windows 7 user.. I brought and installed this OS after a Black Screen of Death on my machine which was running windows Vista Business prooved to be incurable without booting from the Windows CD, which I of course didnt have as it came preloaded. The problem was due to a system restore, which was undertaken after a graphics card failure, and update driver making it worse.

Today having installed 7, I tried a foray in a mataverse I used to be able to run... and immediately, within seconds, I got blurriness and total PC lock up... thats something which initiated the restores which lead to the KSOD, on my Vista... upon some research, I intially loooked like having to replace a broken Graphics Card... but as I delved deeper, I learnt of a few instances when people had this, it was due to A).. over heating from dust build up.. B)... and my problem here today, a faulty device driver.

I am running a Nvidia GeForce 8400GS card in my machine.. it worked fine until a windows update back in Vista.. had been using it all day... then glichtout central and computer lock up.. I installed a driver.. it made it worse.. an update that is... tried to restore to 10 days previous.. but then I needed new flash and java and other things, to even see the links (obviously not the links but the images which said clearly what they where).. to get the things I had updated, but caused np.. until the windows update.. which I couldnt get, because of some crazy firewall insistence it was dangerous (I had to disable my third party security, and windows firewall/deffender, just wouldnt let me load anything from Adobe or the like).. so another restore to 2 days previous only. when it all worked.. was undertaken, apprently successful... restart.. KSOD, boom. no tricks to recover worked (couldnt access task manger to try any via ctrl-alt-del/esc, safe or prompt mode didnt work)... now I finally gotten rid of the buggy system... but I cant for the life of me find a Nvidia driver which will work..

.. I am almost ceretain now I am pretty fortunate, its not the card, and not dust or the like.. because a number of PC forums all suggested the same programes to check PCs efficiency and over heating.. something 64.. and it said all good there... and also a driver checker.. forgot the name.. which was reputable and one of the moost popular.. it told me, there where four core drivers borked.. one being my Nvidia.. which seems to all suggest that.. fortunately.. I might be lucky.. it might be something with my Nvidia system... alas.. now.. for the life of me, I cannot find a stable driver for Windows 7 32.. I tried the Nvidia site.. it gave me a 64 bit one, which loads, and installs, but does work.. get some mesage.. I then got both latest, and archived, 32 bit drivers for this card... and when I install them, one tells me its for windows 7 64.. which the file says it most certianly isnt.. the other.. tells me my system isnt windows Vista/7 32 or 64.. which it needs to be.

I am a total loss, but desprate, because I use virtual worlds, like Secondlife and InWorlds, to speak with my fiance (as I recently had to move back to my home country whilst we go through immigration red tape).. and without anything to make my graphics card work properly and compatibly with this system, I am basically left with snail mail, face book,gmail or the expensive international phone calls.. (skype wont work with her audio system).

So I am hoping some one here has also had to update from Vista, and also runs a 8 series Nvidia card, and can both provide me a link to the drivers I need, and perhpas offer some light on making this new OS recognise them.

Sorry for the long post, but all too often I see people asking short posters for 'more information please'.. so thanks for yout time.

Oh and the system is...

an NEC (though for some reason it reads as Del of late in the 'computer' thingy you click up.. doesnt know PCs so well)... with Intel Pnetium Dual Core e2200s @2.2Ghz, 2Gig of RAM, 320GB SATA HD, and Nvidia 8400GS graphics card.

 

[Mike]

After some research (and extensive parsing of your message), I have found some indications that there are known compatibility problems with this card and Windows 7. However, these compatibility issues do not seem to be publicly recognized by either Microsoft or NVIDIA to my knowledge. This is evidenced by a posting found here: Windows 7 Forums - View Single Post - Geforce 8400M GS problem

I would suggest contacting the manufacturer about possible compatibility issues with this graphics card and Windows 7. Usually there should be no problem, but in your instance I believe you are dealing with a hardware compatibility problem.

One problematic issue that I have noticed from your message is that you have gotten lockups in both Windows Vista and Windows 7. This is indicative of a potentially serious hardware problem. The graphics card may be failing, or another component in the system is causing a failure. This is especially true if you used the preload restore image - It would normally contain all of the drivers and so forth and the system should operate normally.

There are numerous possible causes of why you are having this problem, but I believe you may ultimately be dealing with a card that is in the early, or perhaps even final stages of failure. If you can follow our BSOD directions in that forum and get us a minidump file from c:\windows\minidump it might help if someone took a look. But chances are this is hardware failure related.

 

[Apis4]

After some research (and extensive parsing of your message), I have found some indications that there are known compatibility problems with this card and Windows 7. However, these compatibility issues do not seem to be publicly recognized by either Microsoft or NVIDIA to my knowledge. This is evidenced by a posting found here: Windows 7 Forums - View Single Post - Geforce 8400M GS problem

I would suggest contacting the manufacturer about possible compatibility issues with this graphics card and Windows 7. Usually there should be no problem, but in your instance I believe you are dealing with a hardware compatibility problem.

One problematic issue that I have noticed from your message is that you have gotten lockups in both Windows Vista and Windows 7. This is indicative of a potentially serious hardware problem. The graphics card may be failing, or another component in the system is causing a failure. This is especially true if you used the preload restore image - It would normally contain all of the drivers and so forth and the system should operate normally.

There are numerous possible causes of why you are having this problem, but I believe you may ultimately be dealing with a card that is in the early, or perhaps even final stages of failure. If you can follow our BSOD directions in that forum and get us a minidump file from c:\windows\minidump it might help if someone took a look. But chances are this is hardware failure related.

Hi, thanks for replying.

Yes... it seems it might have been a hardware failure in the graphics card... but the graphics card worked some times, seemingly, for example... using messanger with animated emitoicons got the same thing.. but running a hardware test with Ati-test which whilst aimed at ATI cards, nramlally worked for Nvidia too... I found it told me there was nothing wrong.. and the stress test ran for like 8 minutes before I stopped it...

I have replaced the card with a new 1GB ATi based one from ASUS, and all is fine, however.. seems the comp.tech who sold me it, also agreed that this particular card has caused some compatibility problems.. and he too wasnt 100% convinced it was purely the card dying...but something serious was occuring.. so had me wipe and reinstall, and use the new card, but gave me the old one and suggestted I could test some things... I plan on recycling my old XP machine for this purpose... if the card is good... I will post all I find here.. I am, I am affraid, far from a PC technician, but I do manage to bungle on through alot of problems with DYI solutions based on as much reseach as I can find.. given the fact that indicators are this card and the OS and drivers might all be coming together to cause massive conflicts, which seemingly do even effect hardware (lock ups, BSOD/KSOD)... then I will endeavour.. some time in the coming year, to see what I can learn, and share it all here with the forum.

Thanks for the link, and thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.. and hope I can confirm the suspicion of a conflict, of some what dire results, and maybe over some data others can use to fix it (I know the card is old.. but theres alot of 8 series Nvidia cards out there on Vista machines, and some of those would now be 7 machines. ).