Biostar 6800XT AGP trouble

[matthasaproblem]

I've just picked this up (early Christmas present from the wife) as a holdover card, to get me from my extremely aging 9600XT to the point quadcore CPUs come out, and I build a new Vista system. Just modest specs on the current system, AMD 3600+, gig of ram, 420w Thermaltake Purepower PSU, two Segate 7200rpm 200 gig HDDs, DVDRW, DVD, ASRock 939 Dual SATA-2 motherboard. Current card as I said is just a 9600XT.

So here's the problem. I uninstall the 9600, shut down, pull the card, install the 6800, boot up, Windows loads, run the driver CD. When it gets to the point in the install where the progress bar has made it all the way across, the screen flashes black, then goes black permanently, then the system reboots. Windows loads, the CD spins up, HDDs are active, I get the "new hardware" icon in the system tray. After a minute or so the CD stops and the HDDs stop "working", the "new hardware" icon disappears. So I reboot, and the system locks right before the Windows logon screen appears. Mouse cursor with hourglass on a black screen, then it locks and reboots after 30 or so seconds, and continues to loop like this. I've tried pulling the 6800, putting the 9600 back in, booting, removing the Nvidia drivers, shutting down, swapping cards again for the 6800, booting, reinstalling, and no luck, I get the same lock at the same place. The fan on the 6800 spins up, and yes I have the external power cable plugged in, but no joy. I've tried both installing drivers off the CD that came with the card, and the newest versions downloaded off Nvidia's site, still no joy. Googling gets me little to no help, no hits on this same problem. Any help anyone could throw me would be much appreciated.

 

[mpjesse]

Follow these steps:

1. Reboot windows and hit F8. Choose "last known configuration that worked..."
2. When you get into Windows cancel hardware wizard
3. Download latest drivers from nVidia website and install
4. Reboot

If you still get the hour glass after hitting "last known config...", go into Safe mode, uninstall anything remotely having to do w/ nVidia, uninstall video card in device manager, and restore registry. Then follow 2-4 again. (At this point there's no need to use "last known..." option because all drivers and registry entries have been removed)

Whatever you do, don't use the drivers on the CD. They're very likely 5 million years old.

IF none of this works, come back and i can make a couple more suggestions.