Gigabyte 7600GS card has trouble with S-Video out

[imported_jX]

So, out of the freakin' blue, my video card doesn't want to sync all but one resolution for TV-out. Now, it's not TOTALLY out of the blue, it happened during a driver upgrade of all things, but what the heck in a driver update could cause this? That's rhetorical, not my real question.

So, I am still on the older pre-177 NVidia drivers because on my 7600GS based card, I use the full screen video mirror feature a lot. I know the Vista drivers have this removed, but I didn't know they were going to pull it from the newest XP drivers. So I upgraded to 178, saw it was gone, swore, and downgraded. And thus is began!

On every resolution except the highest TV out res I see this:
Photo of my TV with the S-Video out sync issue

It just doesn't sync. The only resolution it sync on is what I presume to be 1024x768. If that's not the actual resolution, don't blame me. I just tossed up the "Screen resolutions" graph from wikipedia, and saw what the largest area I could see on my TV was. My LCD panel is at 1440x900, FWIW. (EDIT: To be clear, I have a TV AND an LCD display, and I'm having issues with the TV out, NOT the LCD. I only mentioned that for reference.)

Anyway, so this is what I see now instead of a nice smooth image. Makes watching DVDs a little hard. Now, yes, my next card WILL be an ATI card because ATI seems to know how to comply with PVP-OPM without killing features. but for now this is my card.

To diagnose I tried lots of driver versions, a driver uninstall util, etc. I even grabbed another HDD, did a fresh install of Windows XP with the 175 drivers. I always see that out-of-sync issue. So I'm sure it's a hardware issue. I've contacted Gigabyte support about this. They're saying it is/may be the breakout box.

I assumed it was just a connector, but they seem to indicate there are active electronics in it. I also assumed the card itself would need replaced. What is in that little breakout box? Is it that or my card?

 

[kylebisme]

You can just plug the s-video cable right into the back of the card, no breakout box is needed for that. But why are you using s-video anyway?

That LCD is bound to have a better input option.

 

[imported_jX]

The LCD is DVI, it's the TV-out I'm having issues with, not the DVI. The LCD panel is fine, but output to my TV is the issue.

Also, you can NOT plug the S-Video into the card. The jack on the back of the card is similar to an s-video port, but it's not, it's a connector for the breakout box. See:
The card back panel
The breakout box

The breakout box is required to use either S-video or component. Please don't say "use component" as that's not the solution to my question either.

 

[Slugbait]

If your system is AGP, you're not going to want an ATi card. ATi cards from that era had inferior MPEG-2 playback quality compared to nVidia.

But I digress. I think I once had this issue myself long ago with an FX5200 connected to my FD Trinitron, and I believe this is a display properties issue. First, verify the second monitor properly recognizes it as a TV, and not as "default monitor" or whatever. If this isn't it, open nVidia's control panel and select the TV-out option in the left pane. In the right pane, switch it from Automatic to S-Video...however, this likely won't fix the issue, but if it does, great. There is an Advanced button on this pane which will open additional display settings...muck around with those. Hitting the "default" button might even be all it needs. Then reset the rez to 1440x900.

In other words, your system is confused about the display. You've already verified it isn't the drivers, and my guess is it probably isn't the breakout box either.

 

[imported_jX]

No, not AGP, PCIe. This card is a full 16x PCIe card. It USED to work fine, and still does in top res, but not other resolutions on the TV-out. The reason I think it's the card is because even with a fresh XP install and known good drivers. I suppose I could try even older drivers, but I really think something's up with the card...

 

[Slugbait]

...and have you verified it's not your display properties settings? If you don't configure your system specific to the display, you will have issues.

The fact that it started occurring after a driver update is a clear indication that manually configured settings were changed by the driver install. Re-installing the OS and older drivers doesn't mean anything...you still have to manually configure your settings, so known good drivers is a null factor.

However, I'm now thinking it may have nothing to do with your machine, and everything to do with your TV. This guy has the same problem, and he's using a PowerVR video chip.

 

[Slugbait]

Also, you might try asking at AVS forums. I'm betting they've seen this issue come up before.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: jX
The LCD is DVI, it's the TV-out I'm having issues with, not the DVI. The LCD panel is fine, but output to my TV is the issue.

My bad, I had only glanced at your picture and due to the nasty contrast I mistook it for an LCD.

Originally posted by: jX
Also, you can NOT plug the S-Video into the card. The jack on the back of the card is similar to an s-video port, but it's not, it's a connector for the breakout box. See:
The card back panel
The breakout box

That looks just like what came with my 8800gt, but at least on this card the s-video works plugged directly into the card just the same. Have you actually tried plugging your s-video cable directly into the card?

Regardless, s-video is 480i, any resolution you run to it is downscaled to that on the card, so the problem couldn't rightly be the breakout box anyway.

 

[imported_jX]

slugbait: So. I decided to take another look at it. I went back even further with driver versions, to the 169 series. Guess what? Worked fine. Not the card. Apparently my drivers were more out of date than I'd thought, and this glitch was introduced earlier than I thought. so thanks for encouraging me to take another look.

Snowman: No, it's not an s-video plug. It's got S-Video and composite all in one connector, keyed against an s-video jack.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: jX

Snowman: No, it's not an s-video plug. It's got S-Video and composite all in one connector, keyed against an s-video jack.

You can still use a regular svideo cable.
Just break off the keying pin, usually plastic , on the svideo cable.
The correct pins will line up for svideo.

Done it many many times.