Rygel 2005-09-06 19:26
History of System
I'm running a system with three LCD screens from the same vendor and all the same model. Am using NVidia 6800 GT AGP and NVidia FX 5500. Both video cards have Nvidia Forceware Version 77.77. All monitors worked for several months and until recently so did UltraMon. I was getting some errors and with a screensaver and upgraded the NVidia drivers to the version I now have. Solved the error problem, but I noticed that most screensavers would only work on the two screens from the AGP/Primary card. Third screen goes blank. So I uninstalled the NVidia Drivers and Ultramon and reinstalled first the NVidia drivers and then installed an updated version of Ultramon. I had been using 2.4 and this time installed 2.6.
Problem - Help Needed
1. Reinstalling and reinstalling
Ultramon appeared to work well for a week. In the last few days, I've found that it starts when Windows starts, but within the first hour I will see three, four or more dialog windows saying that Windows is installing UltraMon. After this UltraMon is turned off. If I reinitiate UltraMon, this repeats multiple times. If I leave it off, it still tries to reinstall. There must be something in the registry telling it that it hasn't finished installing???? Help.
2. Screensavers
Any ideas on why the screensavers using OpenGL won't run on the monitor supported by the FX 5500 card, but will run on the two monitors supported by the 6800 GT card? Some of the standard windows screensavers and some designed for multiple monitors work well.
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Christian Studer 2005-09-06 22:22
1) this usually happens if anti-spyware/anti-virus software prevents UltraMon from creating the registry entry used for automatic startup.
Please check if you have an entry for UltraMon under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
If the entry doesn't exist, close your anti-spyware and anti-virus software, then run UltraMon via the shortcut under Start Menu > Programs. Setup should then be able to create the registry key.
2) make sure that OpenGL acceleration across multiple monitors is enabled on the Nvidia tab under advanced display settings.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Rygel 2005-09-06 23:28
1. - After disabling the anti-spyware program on start, the registry entry
"C:\Program Files\UltraMon\UltraMon.exe" /auto
showed up and so far no more annoying self-initiating reinstalls.
Many thanks!!
2. - I did have OpenGL acceleration for multiple monitors selected. My favorite screensaver used to run on all three monitors, but now only works on the 6800 GT supported monitors. The vendor site says this is because of different drivers on different cards. Device manager shows same driver on all cards. Registry at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video shows both cards using nv4_disp and a myrid of other settings including both set as MultiFunctionSupported with a value of 0x00000001 (1). This issue is kind of odd. I may try the approach of removing and re-adding the second card at some point, but don't look forward to it. Sometimes when you add a second card, Windows wants to use it as the primary display card and then you have to unseat and reseat the AGP card. Would be better to figure out where the issue is, but may end up beating my head against the wall. Thanks for the suggestion though.
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Rygel 2005-09-07 05:39
Spoke too soon. Problem returned. On reboot, UltraMon continues to be installed multiple times after Windows is launched. Weird. Not consistent either. Not doing it right at the moment.
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Christian Studer 2005-09-07 07:02
Does the registry entry under the Run key still exist?
My guess would be that it got deleted again by the anti-spyware software.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Rygel 2005-09-08 14:08
Yes - it does. This seems to happen immediately after Windows initializes and then it is stable. I log into Windows. It loads up along with all the services and apps. Things run their course and I start working - a few minutes or so later, UltraMon reinstalls. May happen 1 to 3 times. I let it go for awhile and start UltraMon. All is happy until the next reboot.
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Christian Studer 2005-09-08 23:56
Looks like there is still a problem with the installation, please try if repairing it fixes the problem.
To do this, go to Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs, select UltraMon, click on support information, then click on Repair. I would recommend disabling the anti-spyware software before doing the repair.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Rygel 2005-09-24 02:35
Christian
I appreciate your efforts to assist. I'm still running into a problem after following all of your advice. When I reboot, all appears to be normal. ULTRAMON launches successfully and the registry entry is correct. Within minutes ULTRAMON stops working now. If I restart it, then it works fine until the next reboot. In the event log, I see the following:
In chronological order from the application event viewer:
Detection of product '{9CDA9CA7-C5F0-4308-B160-6A477D900D6D}', feature 'UltraMon', component '{2D5248B0-58BE-4523-ABE7-98C50395CFF1}' failed. The resource 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Realtime Soft\UltraMon\' does not exist.
Detection of product '{9CDA9CA7-C5F0-4308-B160-6A477D900D6D}', feature 'UltraMon' failed during request for component '{E4A35470-8E7F-4FFC-BACD-D71B1840F1AE}'
Product: UltraMon -- Configuration completed successfully.
After repairing
Product: UltraMon -- Configuration completed successfully.
This repeats with each reboot and repair
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Rygel 2005-09-24 05:09
Additional - the error message indicated that the registry entry did not exist. On checking, I found that it did exist. Scratch head.
I am changing the registry value for AutoStartDelay from 0 to 1 in case there is a conflict in the startup process.
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Rygel 2005-09-24 05:42
On reboot, the problems were repeated. UltraMon stops working and reinstalls, but does not restart. Event log error messages are the same as above.
When UltraMon stops and reinstalls, Windows Explorer hangs for about 30 seconds.
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Rygel 2005-09-24 16:06
I now have UltraMon working or at least I think so. After the last reboot it did not stop or start trying to reinstall. The solution seems to have been dumping the newer NVidia drivers in favor of an earlier one. The problem was present with versions 66.93, 71.84, 77.77, and 78.01. When I installed version 61.77, the problem appeared to go away.
At the same time the problems I had with OpenGL running across three monitors went away. It seems with any version of the driver newer than 61.77 that OpenGL will only work on monitors supported by the video card that runs the primary monitor.
I'm now able to use three monitors (two using a GeForce 6800 GT and one using a GeForce 5500FX) with OpenGL.
With version 66.93 I was getting BSODs when trying to run the screensaver that had OpenGL. With any newer version the screensaver worked only on two monitors and UltraMon acted up.
Strange that solution was to go back to a more stable, older driver.
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Christian Studer 2005-09-25 08:37
Glad to hear you got it working. Unfortunately I have no idea why/how the video card driver would affect UltraMon setup.
Regarding the error messages you got: the second one refers to UltraMon.exe, most likely this was installed as well and wasn't actually missing.
Let me know if the problem appears again.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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Rygel 2005-10-02 05:34
The system has been as stable as can be for a week now without any issue. UltraMon has performed flawlessly and OpenGL has been working in screensavers spanning three monitors.
From doing some debugging and some best guesses, I can only conclude that the video drivers caused significant problems with Explorer, OpenGL, some other programs and in the end UltraMon. It seems that the newest available driver is not always the best bet and it comes down to finding the one that is stable for your system and the one that will keep it stable. In my case it was a year old driver.
There's a lot of stuff on the net about video drivers buggering Explorer and causing all manner of issues. Any app that depends on Explorer and renders something on the screen can be impacted.
On a semi-related note a blogger notes that the same video driver that I was using (nVidia 77.77) has an inherent flaw that can cause it to go into infinite loop mode and crash the PC where it is installed. See, http://poptech.blogspot.com/2005/08/crash-your-pc-using-html-code.html
There are probably a dozen articles from gamers indicating that there are some serious flaws with nVidia 77.77 and some of the other newer drivers with problems ranging from annoyances to those causing system crashes.
I can only speculate that there's something in the driver and the way interacts with Explorer that doomed UltraMon on my system until I rolled back to a stable driver.
Thanks for trying to help and your patience. You have one of the best products and an essential for anyone using multiple monitors.
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