Windows 10: Basic card with 1920x1080 resolution for Dell Dimension 3100

No, I never had a yellow triangle for the display adapter - only for the monitor and the video controller. The monitor triangle has now cleared and has enabled itself but the display adapter and video controller are disabled. It looks like the NVIDIA driver has provided the onboard GPU with 1920x1080 resolution, which is, in principle, not available with the Intel 915GV driver. Mysterious to my way of thinking.

 

What?

At least in US English Windows 10, the display adapter is the device that drives the monitor.

Which output is the monitor connected to? The onboard or the discrete graphics card?

 

The only display adapter shown in Device Manager is the NVIDIA GT730 and that is disabled because Windows will not start with it enabled. The Monitor is connected to the HDMi port on the GT730 card and the resulting display is a perfect 1920x1080 image. Loopy though it seems, all is working well.
Meanwhile, I downloaded the GPU-Z utility which confirms that the GT730 card is fully functioning (as it should be).

 

Bizarre.

I don't understand what is going on.

However, I have disabled the display adapter in Device Manager in the past while fooling around with a graphics card BIOS update (don't ask). The PC still operated. I'm not sure what "disabled" means is this context.

If it was my PC, I'd probably uninstall the 730 from Device Manager, and check the box to remove the drivers. And pray to the deity of my choice. while I rebooted the system.

 

Well, I removed the NVIDIA drivers in Add/Remove Programs and that changed nothing, suggesting that the GT730 card is just acting as a VGA to HDMi converter.
I then downloaded GeForce Experience and allowed it to analyse the system and install the chosen driver (364.72). This process took more than an hour but appeared to run smoothly. It then asked to reboot the PC "to restore full functionality". Unfortunately, that took me back to the same state as before; namely, that the startup sequence stops on the Windows 10 screen with the rotating circle of dots. The dots rotate twice and then stop.
If I manually reboot, I get "Preparing Automatic Repair" then "Diagnosing your system" then "Restart or Advanced options". It seems that the only way out of this is to go into Safe Mode and disable the graphics driver again.

 

The only other thing that I can suggest is clearing the CMOS.

I have had to do that sometimes when switching graphics cards. I have never gone from onboard graphics to a PCI-E X1 card, but I hope that it helps. (RTCRST jumper.)

 

This problem of NVIDIA drivers causing black screens and boot failures seems so widespread that I feel there has to be an answer somewhere. Yet, out of hundreds of similar stories to mine, I have not found one solution that works. In view of the fact that all my wife wanted was a good wide screen image for her new monitor, I seem to have now found a stable way to achieve that.
There is a very useful software utility called DDU that thoroughly cleans all traces of NVIDIA drivers and also has the option to prevent Windows Update from reinstalling new drivers. Microsoft Basic Display Adapter is able to interface to the GT 730 card and offers a wide selection of resolutions, including 1920x1080. Consequently, via HDMi, we now have a very nice proportional HD image. Admittedly, the scrolling and video play can be a bit jerky initially but it does smooth out quite quickly with buffering.
I've reached the point where I think this is probably the best I can achieve on this old PC.
To some people, that may seem like this thread is solved. It is not! It would only be solved it an answer had been found to the issue of making the driver work without crashing the Windows 10 display.

 

Hi Topgeek, have you tried disabling "On-board" graphics in the BIOS?

 

There are only two settings, 'Onboard' and 'Auto'. I have set mine to 'Auto' but it makes no difference.

 

I've added a video card in a number of computers over the last several years and never had to go into the BIOS and disable the onboard adapter, just plug the monitor into the new card. When thinking about it, if the card is removed and the BIOS has the onboard disabled and no new card added, how would one then use the computer? A number of new computers I've set up where the folks upgraded the video received them with covers put over the onboard port/s by the OEM so as not to use them.

 

Well, I guess the 'Automatic' setting avoids that situation (in my case).