[mcgregor94086]

My house mate has a custom built tower computer with a Celeron 2.5GHz processor running Win XP Pro SP 3. Device Manager reports the display adapter as NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000. Monitor is reported as a "Plug and Play Monitor" (it is actually a DELL M782).

A few years ago, she had a problem with frequent system freezes or crashes which were tracked down to "the wrong video card driver". Supposedly technician replaced the video driver and this was fixed, and she had not been a problem for 2 years. Recently she started to experience her computer display freezing up again -- most frequently when she was reading her Yahoo email in IE, though not exclusively in that situation, and not every time she viewed her email. She believe this has to do with the video driver because after each freeze, she would reboot, and when IE would start up it would report that an error had occurred due to a "wrong video driver". She believed this problem started shortly after Yahoo changed their email page and began running video ads on it, though this is could just be a coincidence.

This happens with some regularity, like once per week, but is not something we can repeat on demand yet.

Any thoughts on how to diagnose this problem further and how to repair it?

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Welcome to Geeks To Go!

It depends on whether the display adaptor is integrated on to the motherboard, or if it's a separate card in one of the rear slots.

If it's the former, you need to know the motherboard make and model, then go to that company's website (google it) and click the link for support or driver downloads. Some motherboard maker's may even have a "scan my system" link to identify the motherboard and it's chips.

If the video card is not "integrated", you need to go to the nVidia website instead. Select the card model and the latest compatible drivers should appear.

The monitor issue (Plug & Play Monitor) is quite separate from the video card/driver issue. The Dell website (USA) doesn't have a driver for the M782. However, I wouldn't worry about this. hundreds of people are using monitors which Windows sees as just a "plug and play monitor" because the owner has no information-driver for it. It's unlikely to cause any problems at all since, unlike most other devices, a monitor really is "plug & play" and a driver is optional.

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 08 March 2010 - 12:36 PM.

[phillipcorcoran]

Welcome to Geeks To Go!

It depends on whether the display adaptor is integrated on to the motherboard, or if it's a separate card in one of the rear slots.

If it's the former, you need to know the motherboard make and model, then go to that company's website (google it) and click the link for support or driver downloads. Some motherboard maker's may even have a "scan my system" link to identify the motherboard and it's chips.

If the video card is not "integrated", you need to go to the nVidia website instead. Select the card model and the latest compatible drivers should appear.

The monitor issue (Plug & Play Monitor) is quite separate from the video card/driver issue. The Dell website (USA) doesn't have a driver for the M782. However, I wouldn't worry about this. hundreds of people are using monitors which Windows sees as just a "plug and play monitor" because the owner has no information-driver for it. It's unlikely to cause any problems at all since, unlike most other devices, a monitor really is "plug & play" and a driver is optional.

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 08 March 2010 - 12:36 PM.