Win 7 Pro 64, BFG GTS 250 and a Black Screen

Ok first of all I apologise if I miss out any information you may require to assist me.

I thought I was fairly tech savvy but this one just has me plain beat.

My PC recently started freezing regularly requiring a hard reboot. I was unable to identify the cause of the lockups beyond that it happened usually when playing some form of game video (as opposed to a video file like wmv).

I tried leaving it on several occasions overnight and it didn't budge

I did a test on memory : pass
I scanned my hdd's to heck and back : pass
Virus check : pass
malware etc : pass

Eventually it corrupted my Win7 installation during one lockup and win repair wouldnt work so:

I tried a full clean install of win 7 pro 64. Same issue but this time the lockup was during win7 installation
I added a further 4 gb of memory (totalling 8gb), same still
I tried adding a soundcard and disabling the mobo sound. Lockup during installation.
I tried replacing video card and again screen just freezes with no hdd activity.

I removed the cmos battery and applied the jumper and left it for an hour.

Removed all HDD's
Installed clean fresh HDD
unplugged the various dvd drives etc and sound card

So now I have

P5Q Pro mobo
8 gb memory
alphapower 850L psu
BFG geforce gts 250 1 gb ddr3
liteon dvd internal
Intel Quad Core 2
samsung 1.5 Tb SATA

Windows installed fine. it installed the VGA drivers and I was able to install the latest nvidia drivers 260.99

reboot and post runs fine, windows loads to the point where circling dots appear and coalesce ans then just at the point where windows logon screen should appear the monitor goes black, GPU fan powers down, usb keyboard and usb mouse power off and hdd activity stops. PC requires a hard reboot.

I can load up in safe mode fine and even in safe mode with networking and happily browse internet in the default vga drivers but as soon as I install the nvidia driver black screen withthe power down issues.

I have tried to replace the BFG GTS 250 with a diff brand GTS 250 3(XFX) and that runs fine.

At first I thought the card was maybe at fault but I have loaded the BFG card into an older PC and it runs fine albeit the older pc runs the card at reduced power as it is installed in a ECS KN1 SLI Lite Mobo and that only supports PCIe at 8x rather than 16x. plus the power supply on the older pc isnt as good.

Is this a hardware issue with the drivers trying to use areas of the gfx that the standard vga ones dont and the card being faulty? a driver issue only? a mobo issue?

I am starting to go grey prematurely trying to figure this one out.

Have you tried the integrated VGA port? that will tell you if it is the video card... altough you've already tried the video card on another PC... but hey, who knows?

Sorry if I appear obtuse but I dont intend to be.

Integrated VGA port?

The P5q Pro motherboard doesn't have an integrated gfx processor if that's what you are mean. Its a gfx card or nothing i.e. nothing to plug the monitor into.

Fluffy said:

Sounds like a power supply issue, the one you have listed I have never heard of and suggests to me that it was a cheap option on an 850W supply and I doubt it even provides that. Try swapping it for another and see what happens.

Yeap! that could be.. not always having a high wattage PSU means it's a good one.. i'd check that too, just to be sure :)

Viqer Fell said:

Sorry if I appear obtuse but I dont intend to be.

Integrated VGA port?

The P5q Pro motherboard doesn't have an integrated gfx processor if that's what you are mean. Its a gfx card or nothing i.e. nothing to plug the monitor into.

Ohhhh good point! hehe sorry, didn't knew that.. still.. try what Fluffy said

ah ok cheers i'll have a stab at obtaining a good psu on loan to test this weekend