[HyperHacker]

Well the adapter was a good idea. Everything's working nice again except for one small problem - when Windows starts up, it forgets the primary monitor's display settings and puts it at 640x480 at 60hz. If nothing else I can probably write a quick program to switch it back on startup. The secondary one (connected to the DVI port) starts up at 1152x864@75 just like I left it (the highest that monitor can go at >60hz), 3D works, hibernation and standby work, and it's not slow.
If anyone does know how to make it not forget the resolution and refresh rate that'd be great - it's probably a problem with those dumb video drivers (but at least they're not crashing) - but like I said it's not a huge problem. As for the PCI card, well, I guess my brother might like it as a replacement for his really really old card.

[edit] Hm, maybe it's more of a problem than I thought. Since it starts up in a low resolution, it scrambles the desktop icons because a lot of them are outside the work area. Setting it back to the resolution I wanted was easy enough, but it's too late to avoid moving the icons. It actually seems to forget where they're placed - as well as where the taskbar is, defaulting it to the right side of the second monitor when I want it at the right of the first - just as it forgets the display settings. Even the icons on the second monitor, which stays at the correct settings, get moved back to where they were before.

[more editing] I see in the registry, at HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO, there's a lot of keys with CLSIDs for names specifying various video settings that I've used. Maybe I should delete some? Also I heard of a NoSaveSettings key, but it didn't exist, and I'd assume the default is off.

[guess what, it's an edit] I found something interesting in the Windows troubleshooter (for once):

Quote

Your primary display adapter should be installed in the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slot 0 or 1. This slot is usually the farthest from the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) slots and nearest the edge of the motherboard. This display adapter should be connected to your primary monitor.
If you are using both PCI and Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) display adapters, the PCI display adapter must be installed in the first PCI slot on your computer.
If you have an AGP display adapter and a PCI display adapter installed, most computers select the PCI card as the primary display adapter because the PCI bus is enumerated before the AGP bus. This enumeration is a function of your computer's BIOS and is not controlled by the Windows operating system.

To use an AGP card as the primary display adapter, and a PCI card as the secondary, one of the following conditions must exist:

The computer's BIOS must support the enumeration of the AGP bus before the PCI bus.
The PCI display adapter must have the option to disable VGA functionality at the hardware level. Check the documentation for your PCI display adapter for information about disabling VGA functionality.

I'm just going to stick to using the adapter though.

This post has been edited by HyperHacker: 28 June 2006 - 02:24 PM

[HyperHacker]

Well I bought a TV tuner card today, "EasyTV MPEG WDM TVTuner"... It's cheap so I don't expect it to work that well, but I would expect it to at least work. Exact same problem after installing the drivers: This device cannot start. (Code 10). Should I be buying a new motherboard or something? Really ticks me off. Also it's still forgetting the display settings and position of the desktop icons and taskbar. I've been on vacation for a while so I didn't find anything related to that.

This post has been edited by HyperHacker: 07 July 2006 - 04:14 PM