New Video Card wont work

[beauknowsdiddly]

Hello Everyone!
I'm stumped again. I wanted to upgrade my video card and took Helltech's advice and got the sapphire 5670

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871

He assured me that it would work with my dinky 330W psu so I bought it. I've tried everything I can possibly think of and the monitor just wont turn on. First I followed the instructions, uninstall my original card which was a NVidia GeForce 8300 GS, remove it and replace it with the new one. Nope, no go. Then I tried installing the software first, then I tried removing all my RAM before inserting the card among other things. NO MONITOR! :-(

So I look at the specs on the box and they say that I need a minimum of a 400W psu. 475W if I want to use CrossfireX, whatever that is.

So, do you think Helltech was wrong and now I need to buy a new PSU? If that's the case what a bummer!

And if that's the case, how do I know what PSU to get?

Here's my system board...


http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01080268&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&product=3629205

Thanks everyone!

Beau

 

[Timop]

The PSU should be fine, I have the same PSU (if not worse, a Bestec HP 300W, your might be the better Delta one) powering an Athlon 64 X2 and a slightly OCed 8600GT.

Try re-seating the card, make sure it goes in all the way so you can barely see the gold-pins.

Did you happen to reset the BIOS? Try putting the card in but connect the VGA cable to the one on the Mobo and see if you get anything.

 

[Mousemonkey]

The 8300GS and HD5670 use about the same amount of power (less than 30w @load) so if it is your PSU that is at fault then you are SOL as that's a really rubbish PSU, have you tried the old card? And is there any way to test the new card in a different rig?

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Whew, oh boy, that was rough!

So I was going to try it in another machine which has a 400W psu, however that machine doesn't have a pci express slot. So I took the 400 psu and put it in this machine just for the heck of it and still no go. I did reset my Bios, in fact I even cleared my cmos. The other card the 8300 still works. I do have one more machine that has a PCI Express slot but that one only has a 250 watter. I suppose I could attempt to put the 400 in that one and try the card there. ugh this is crazy!

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Oh, and if I plug the vga cable into the onboard one with either card plugged in, again the monitor doesn't start up. It will start however if I remove the card and plug it into the onboard one. then of course it installs that chipset. My bios is set to PCI btw. There's no pci e setting only pci and onboard if that matters

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Okay so I put the 400 watter in the machine with the pci Express slot along with the 5670 and the screen actually lit up! The XP screen came up! Woohoo progress! Short lived. the xp screen disappeared and it stayed at a blank screen. So I tried booting it in safe mode which worked. It fianally booted to the desktop. It detected the new hardware and installed it. So then I rebooted windows normally and get the same thing, XP Screen for about 5 minutes then blank. :-( Quite the frustrating little scenario. And this bios has a pci express setting btw, this board is a GeForce 6100PM-M2. I wonder why the original doesn't have a pci express setting in bios. Ugh I'm pretty much out of options here. any clues?

 

[jitpublisher]

You must first uninstall all the old video drivers and software. Install the standard generic Windows VGA driver. Then you shut down, take the old card out, put the new card in, boot to windows, and then install the new drivers for the new card.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Nope I did exactly that, uninstalled all the drivers for the 8300 rebooted and it automatically installed the standard generic windows vga driver. I powered down, switched the cards, booted up and still no screen. :-(

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Well something's obviously wrong with my machine. I put the thing in another machine and it works just fine so I'll just use that for my little dinky gaming computer. Once I get everything backed up maybe I'll just do I fresh install. Maybe it's a Vista thing as well. The machine I had no problem with is XP Pro. I dunno, things that make you go hmmm.

Thank You very much everyone for all the advice!

Talk to you soon!

Beau

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

One more thing, after I hooked my original machine back up using the onboard video, minus the original nvidia 8300 card and drivers, I got a Windows update notice to install the nvidia 8300gs. I don't get it, the card's not even plugged in. That's just wierd.

 

[Mousemonkey]

It sounds like there are still some left over files behind, I don't know when it happened but at some point a while back the drivers seemed to register themselves to whatever card is in at the time they are installed which seems to result in issues if that card is then replaced with a different one but there was a time when you could just pull one card out and replace it with another and the driver would recognise the new card and sort itself out.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Yes mousemonkey I agree. I suppose the next step would be to put it back to factory settings. I'm going to have to find a cheap external hdd to back up about 200 gbs of stuff first.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Was the 8300GS an OEM card?

 

[jerreece]

If you're worried about old drivers/settings being there still, try using DriverSweeper before you install the new card.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Was the 8300GS an OEM card?

As a matter of fact it was. I bought the thing from HP and they even had a cap screwed over the onboard port

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

If you're worried about old drivers/settings being there still, try using DriverSweeper before you install the new card.

http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

Cool thanks for that jerreece, I'll definately give that a shot next time I attempt it.

 

[Mousemonkey]

What about the PC? Is that an OEM prebuild as well? I'm assuming it is because of the link you posted earlier and I'm wondering if the recovery partition is what's interfering here.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

What about the PC? Is that an OEM prebuild as well? I'm assuming it is because of the link you posted earlier and I'm wondering if the recovery partition is what's interfering here.

hmmmm yes it is as I stated earlier, I bought the thing from hp, which I'll never have to do again since I've figured out how to build my own for alot cheaper. So it does have a recovery partition. That's why I was thinking about doing a fresh install as opposed to setting it back fo factory settings. Most of the stuff that came with the thing is just useless dribble taking up space anyway.

 

[Mousemonkey]

To delete a recovery partition I like to use fdisk, that way I know it's gone.

 

[Timop]

To delete a recovery partition I like to use fdisk, that way I know it's gone.

Personally I found G-parted to work quite well.
With an actual GUI, It should be alot more user-friendly and comfortable for people whos not familiar with command lines.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

To delete a recovery partition I like to use fdisk, that way I know it's gone.

I was thinking about just using the format option that comes when I install Vista, just delete both partitions and format. If that's even how you do it in Vista. It would be a good idea to use fdisk but how do you do that in Vista?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Booting from a windows 95 or 98 CD is the easiest way.

 

[beauknowsdiddly]

Booting from a windows 95 or 98 CD is the easiest way.

Heh, I never thought of that, good idea. I wonder if I even still have an old copy laying around, oh yeah I do. I also have Wipe Pro and Hirems which is pretty awesome.

What I'm still wondering though is this..... Why do you think my bios has settings for pci-e, pci and onboard only when the original 8300 is plugged in? When I unplug it and load my bios from the onboard display there are only settings for pci and onboard, the pci-e setting disappears. I'm just thinking that what's the point of doing a raw install if it's a motherboard/bios issue. I dunno, I ordered another 500 GB HDD tonite so I'll find out in a few days.

Thanks for the chat, this could go on forever lol