Random Black Screen

[Pliskin]

I recently purchased an eVGA Ultra 6800. I have the most recent BIOS and my problem occurs on all drivers 61.77 - 67.03 (my current setup).

My screen will randomly go black for 1 - 5 seconds when using a 1600x1200 resolution. This happens for both 3D and 2D games. It makes playing Half-Life 2 lots of fun :( If I didn't know better I would say the computer has decided to blink for me.

If I remove my nVidia drivers and just use the default drivers at 640x480 my screen will also go black randomly.

I have checked the cables and I have also checked to make sure everything is seated properly. I even RMA'd my card (worst 2 weeks ever!). I have also checked the voltages of everything. The voltages are on the default settings and I do not overclock anything. My AGP voltage is a constant 1.45 and my processor is a constant 1.34.

I can't figure this out for the life of me. This problem never happened with my 9800XT. I also did a complete reformat when I switched from ATI to nVidia. I use driver cleaner before updating to new drivers so I'm positive that it isn't my registry.

Below is my setup. Any ideas?

PIV 3.2E
1GB DDR400 PC3200 Kingson
Soyo Ultra Dragon Platinum 2 (latest BIOS)
eVGA Ultra 6800 67.03 drivers and latest BIOS
Audigy 2 ZS latest drivers
Dell 2001FP 20" LCD
Windows XP Pro SP2 w/ all patches

[Pliskin]

Ok, I am closing in on the problem. It is either a bad DVI cable/port or more than likely the timing settings. I switched to an analog cable and my monitor performs flawlessly at all resolutions and I no longer have the black screen problem. I highly doubt that it is my cable since it ran fine with my old ATI card. I also doubt that it is a bad DVI port because nothing would work then.

Therefore, my question is now this. What should I have my Display Mode Timing set at for my 20" Dell 2001FP LCD monitor? The ATI drivers detected it automatically, but I suspect that nVidia's drivers are not doing so and probably for a good reason.