Video card not being recognized by Windows

Matt G

Honorable
Jul 1, 2013
50
0
10,630
So last week, my old PSU died and seems to have to taken my video card (Radeon 5450) with it. Me, being the usual idiot I am, bought an AMD Radeon HD 7570 for a "bargain" off eBay. Got it in the mail today, and found out its a sub-par dell OEM card. Nowhere in the listing did it say it was an OEM card, but it said it was "New" and it did still have some plastic packaging on the top and it does indeed look new. I guess that's what I get for not doing good research first.

I knew it was kind of weak, but I was just thinking "as long as it's better than my old one, it's fine" which is still true. I'm not much of a gamer - pretty much the only games I play on PC are Fallout 3 and WoW.

Now, onto the issue at hand. I guess I had not paid attention to the fact it was "low-profile" (which makes it even worse, fml), so I was surprised to find out it didn't fit in my standard ATX case, because it was too narrow. I solved that problem by swapping the faceplate things from my old video card to the new one, which happened to line up and work well, just a little overhang with an empty VGA space. I also am using a DVI-VGA adapter (my monitor is VGA, card only has DVI). It is a bus-powered card.

I had been using on-board video while waiting for the new card to arrive, and I also (tried) to remove all AMD related drivers to ensure a clean install, by means of Catalyst Control Center. When I was ready to install the new card, I went to device manager and disabled the display adapter (intel g33/g31 express chipset family), since my BIOS has no explicit option to disable on-board video (as far as I know, here's a link where the manual can be DLed http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=363#dl).

I installed the card, hooked up the monitor to it, and switched on the computer, not changing any BIOS settings since I couldn't find out where to disable on-board video. I heard it start up, the fan was spinning, and the computer booted just fine. I checked device manager, hoping to at least see the card under display adapters, but the only thing I found was "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" with a yellow exclamation next to it (This device cannot start. (Code 10)).

I figured it needed drivers, so naturally I went to AMD's website to find drivers for it. I first tried the auto-detect option but it said something about not being able to find any devices. I then went through the search options until I settled on "Radeon HD 7xxx" and my OS. I found what I thought to be the correct drivers and installed them, and rebooted. No change.

After more research, I found out that it was actually a Dell OEM card, and that drivers for it can only be found on Dell's website. At this point, I'm doubtful it will even work (does OEM stuff work on a custom/non branded computer? Could that be the problem?). I located the driver for the Radeon HD 7570 on dell's website and downloaded it. Before I installed it, I removed the old CCC (catalyst control center) and related drivers through that program. I unpacked the driver/installation package to the default C:\Dell (which had to be created) and I ran the EXE within that folder, to install CCC yet again. After another reboot, nothing still. I repeated this step another time, reinstalling it to no avail.

After that, I began poking around in the BIOS, looking for anything of use. I found the "Initiate graphic adapter" setting, with the following options:
1. IGD
2. PCI/IGD
3. PCI/PEG
4. PEG/IGD
5. PEG/PCI
I have tried options 2-5, but with no change. I also changed under the PCIPnP category PCIE IOxAPIC of the first of seven ports (0-6) from disable to enable. I don't really know what that was, but it resulted in no change. As of this writing, it's still running the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter through this card.

Sorry that's a ton of text, maybe too much, but I just wanted to be thorough in what I did so far.

So, anyone have any ideas what to do next? Or am I pretty much screwed no matter what? I just find it odd that it powers up fan spins, and I'm running basic video through the card. Please no replies like "just buy a new card", because I can't afford a new one and I wouldn't bother posting if I could. As far as any sort of returns go, my only recourse is eBay's "buyer protection" program, and from what I can tell, only applies to getting the wrong item altogether. I appreciate any constructive ideas, and thank you in advance.


Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0GHz
4GB Kingston KVR800D2N6/2G 1.8V RAM
Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 550w PSU
BIOSTAR G31-M7 TE mobo
Vista 64-bit
 

Matt G

Honorable
Jul 1, 2013
50
0
10,630
I read somewhere resetting CMOS might help, and tried it with no results. Came back the next day and was getting a POST error and had to reset again. Nobody has any ideas?