Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5570 troubles after Win7 upgrade

I am so close to taking my system in to a shop. I feel stuck between a rock and hard place and going in circles. I have an HP m8200n sytem that was running Vista Home Premium 32. Last month, I disabled the onboard graphics and installed the Sapphire HD 5570 card, with no problems at all. The other day I did a clean install/upgrade to Windows 7 home premium 64 and have had nothing but failure in getting the computer to recognize the graphics card.

My biggest problem right now is trying to boot to the bios. I used to be able to press F10 to get into the bios, but since my OS upgrade it doesn't work any more. I was going to uninstall any graphics drivers, graphics card and reset the bios to use the onboard NVidia graphics. Then I was going to reinstall the Sapphire card, with the hopes Windows 7 would do the rest. Is there another way to get to the bios?

If I try to use the Sapphire card and driver the computer boots up to the windows 7 icon and refreshes to a "somewhat black" screen. The mouse cursor is the only thing that shows up and I can control it. The screen isn't completely black and the audio sounds as if the system booted up to the login screen, except someone put a black curtain over it. Hopefully, that makes sense. When I reboot in safe mode and go under Device Drivers, it shows the video adapter is not functioning properly and nothing shows up for the monitor (HP w1907). If I uninstall the graphics driver and reboot the computer, Windows 7 will use the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter driver and the monitor will show up in the Device Manager appear using the Generic PnP Monitor driver.

Has anyone had a similar issue...been there, done that and fixed it? And how do I get to the bios?

This is what I would do, I would uninstall the GPU driver and then remove the card physically from the system. Then reboot and let system use the onboard graphics. Next I would redo the clean install of your OS making sure that the install took correctly then install all necessary drivers. Then power off and uplug and install your GPU and install latest driver from Sapphires website. Then see how your system reacts and post back with what transpires.

To get into your BIOS, try the delete key upon a reboot. Once you did a clean install of 7, you wiped out all of HP's funtions such as F2, F10 and F11. It's the nature of the beast.

SAPPHIRE- HOME

mracko said:

My biggest problem right now is trying to boot to the bios. I used to be able to press F10 to get into the bios, but since my OS upgrade it doesn't work any more.

bassfisher6522 said:

Once you did a clean install of 7, you wiped out all of HP's funtions such as F2, F10 and F11. It's the nature of the beast.

Please be aware that the BIOS loads before the OS loads. In fact you don't even need an operating system installed to get into and use the BIOS.

This means your clean install did nothing to affect the ability to get into the BIOS since the BIOS does not depend on or need an operating system to load.

Don't know why you can't get into the BIOS but it's certainly not Windows fault. In short F2, F10 and F11 are still F2, F10 and F11 with or without an OS.

Question: Are you using a USB keyboard? Try using a PS/2 connector or connected keyboard. PS/2 connector - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

bassfisher6522 said:

This is what I would do, I would uninstall the GPU driver and then remove the card physically from the system. Then reboot and let system use the onboard graphics.

So, if I remove the graphics card the system will automatically find the onboard GPU? This is what I was wanting to do manually by getting to the Bios. By the way, most of the F keys take me to Windows Boot Manager, F8 takes me to a sub menu of Windows Boot Menu and F10, so far, gets me to a black screen with a blinking DOS cursor in the top left corner of the screen. I will give Delete a try...Ctrl-Alt-Delete just reboots the computer.

bassfisher6522 said:

Next I would redo the clean install of your OS making sure that the install took correctly then install all necessary drivers. Then power off and uplug and install your GPU and install latest driver from Sapphires website. Then see how your system reacts and post back with what transpires..

Everything else, having to do with Windows 7, is operating good, as far as I can tell. Programs have installed and opened with no problems. Would a clean reinstall be neccessary. If need be I will, but only if I have to. It took most of my day off to do it the first time.

I am using a PS/2 connector key board.

Another thought I had was what would happen if I:

• delete GPU drivers and shut system down
• remove graphics card
• remove and replace CMOS battery (thinking this would set the bios back to factory default)
• turn system on and have it install the onboard NVidia GPU drivers
• shut system back down and install the Sapphire card per manufacturers directions

Is this a possibility or totally wrong thinking? I have never played with the CMOS before, so I don't know what it can/can't do.

By the way, thank you both for replying. I have been spinning my wheels wasting a lot of time, but learning a lot, with this. The good news, though, is I have a second computer with the same GPU that I plan to upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit also. That computer "should" go very smoothly since I am learning from all my mistakes on the present computer. I plan to remove the card and switch back to the original onboard graphics BEFORE I upgrade the OS!

If you want to use the new card you bought instead of the on-board GPU, you're going to have to get into the BIOS and disable the on-board GPU. How you et into the BIOS should be documented in your owner's manual. If you no longer have it, find it on the net and see what it says about entering the BIOS.

Good luck.

Quick question. I still can't get into the BIOS menu by pressing F10, so I was going to shut down and reset the BIOS to factory default using the jumper on the motherboard and then do another clean install of Windows 7.

I purchased the family pack (3x) upgrade packaging and I had activated Windows 7 after my first install. Does this mean I used up one of the licenses and that when I do the other install I will have used up a second one? Or is the first one tied to my system?

You can just reactivate again. If you get a can't activated code just phone Microsoft and explain it to them. That's the best way I can explain it as I don't know how the family pack activations work.

As for resetting the BIOS, if you can't get in it now, resetting it isn't going to change that issue. I posted earlier that you need to find the owner’s manual at home or on the net and see what it says about getting into the BIOS..... That still holds true. You can also call the PC/motherboard manufacture and find out how to enter the BIOS.

Good luck.

Well, I got the chance togo back to the onboard gpu and do a another clean install. The outcome was the same; couldn't get to the bios and the hd5570 didn't install properly. I threw in the towel and brought it to the local shop. I am really curious as to what the problem turns out to be as I have another computer to upgrade with the same gpu.

I will post what the fix turns out to be.