Please help: Bad card(s), PSU or settings - no GPU

[claidig]

This has been one heck of a night and I am hoping someone can help me out.

My son now lives 2 states away with his mother and they cannot afford a PC tech so I am all there is (and I am amateur at best).

Problem and symptoms..
GeForce 8800 card stopped working all of a sudden.
The fan on the card still spun ) so it was getting some power at least) and there was a picture but only in low resolution (1200X900 I think).
He couldn't access the Nividia control panel or play games...when he tried it would say no display detected or no drivers installed, one was error 37 (will verify these errors tomorrow and update this). Also both card are detected form the Nividia website when looking for drivers.

After reading this forum as much as I could I figured it was his video card so I found someone to bring him a new / used one. But he is having the exact same thing happen with this new card.
I say new but it is a few years old but never installed or box even open.

I would greatly appreciate any help on this as I am only available to help him over the phone and we have no way to test with other machines..and are very poor to say the least.

His setup:
Motherboard: Asus M4A88TD-V Evo
CPU: AMD Phenom 11 955
PSU: 550 Watts

Card that worked for first 2 years:
Geforce 8800 GT (512)

Card he just got but won't work:
Geforce GTS 250 (512)

Have Tried..
Installing drivers from disc (x2) with clean install

Auto detecting card from Nividias download site and getting / installing drivers (x2).

What else can I tell him to try?

Any chance it's the power supply? But would there be video showing up and the fan be spinning and card(s) detected?

Thank you much in advance.

 

[GreenDutchAlien]

Hi.

I'll give it a try but don't expect to much, sounds complicated.

Does the on board graphics still work ok ?

What psu is it, specially we would like to know the amps on the +12V rail, you can find that info on a label on the side of the psu. ( inside the case )

 

[bitspirit3]

You should probably get a cheap 10$ psu and just try it out. If it works, great and if it doesn't atleast you know it wasn't the psu.

 

[smorizio]

also have someone try installing newer intel chipset drivers if it has an intel chipset..with a damaged chipset driver the mb and video card may not run right. also have someone download gpu-z to see if it can read the mb and the pci bus speed. if the card is read right but notthe bus speed it might be the mb.

 

[claidig]

Robjordy: I know he has video output through the card itself in lower resolution but he has not tried the onboard yet.
When he gets home from school he will call me so we can start the over the phone troubleshooting again and I will get the PSU info.

bitspriti: Spending the $45 on a card and having it delivered was already too much for me to spend right now as I am out of work PLUS

Smor:
I don't have anyoyne down there who can help with installing a PSU even if I could find a cheap used PSU, this is the biggest problem.

Summary of problem: (since the above post was long)

Problem:
When trying to play games it will not let him, says no drivers...cannot get Nvidia control panel to function or raise resolution, says no disply connected.

Video is running through the card right now...but must be on it's default settings I guess (like onboard at new install with no drivers).
Same thing happens with both cards.

Thank you.

 

[claidig]

Ugh..after being on the phone with my son for a couple hours last night I finally found out that he is getting chk dsc on every boot..and it keeps going in circles.
I also found (told him where to look) over 11k disc errors in the event viewer.

I guess I need to make a post in another part of this site before I continue down this video card path...I hope he doesnt need a new drive.