Can't Get Windows to See My New Graphics Card

TommySTL · 27 Dec 2011

Lately we've had a pretty maddening problem with our desktop PC at home. It used to come and go but now it's basically wall-to-wall. What happens is most of the red color is lost from the display, so the display is severely discolored, and things that are supposed to be red appear black. Not only is it immensely annoying, and probably not good for the eyes, but it also prevents us from being able to do some photo processing work for our business.

The PC is an HP Pavilion a1700n from 2007 that I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit a couple years ago. Its video pretty much comes from the motherboard. It is NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE. The monitor and VGA cable are relatively new, and I have been able to eliminate them as possible sources of this problem.

I had tried shutting the computer down and removing power from it completely for a short period of time, then restoring power and booting back up. After doing this, it used to be okay for a time, but then go discolored again. Now after all of my trying yesterday to get a new graphics card to work (discussed below), it is pretty much discolored all the time.

Yesterday I went to Best Buy and bought a Galaxy GeForce 210 graphics card and stuck it in the PCI Express slot. Windows didn't even see it, even after I installed the drivers, and there's no video coming from it. I took it back today and exchanged it for a GeForce 8400 GS, and so far I'm getting the same result.

I've gone into the BIOS and changed the "Primary Video Adapter" to "PCI-E" and I still have the problem. I've gone into Device Manager and selected "Disable" on the NVIDIA 6150 LE while in Safe mode, and that doesn't help; it just gives me the basic low-resolution setting, but the video still comes out from the old port. I've tried making Windows scan for new hardware in Device Manager, again no workie.

I don't believe either the card I had yesterday or the one I have today require auxiliary power. The fan on the card is running. I just can't get Windows to see it or use it.

I've also tried updating the drivers for the existing 6150 LE system, but that didn't fix the original discoloration problem.

My wife and I will probably buy a new desktop, but that's a few months down the road. Is there anything we can do with this PC in the meantime? The discoloration renders it practically useless.

I'm pretty sure the onboard video is shot and there's no practical way of fix it; and now that I've gone out and bought it, I guess I'd like to just get the new card to work.

Any help you can give will be appreciated. Thanks....

Maguscreed · 27 Dec 2011

Hp monitors are infamous for popping capacitors, which results in all kinds of strange behavior.
Your problem could also be a bad cable from the computer to the monitor.

Outside of that it seems entirely possible you got a dud card.

Slammer · 27 Dec 2011

This is probably irrelevant, but just out of curiosity: when you removed power to get it to display correctly, and then it went discolored again, did it discolor slowly over time, or instantly?

alphanumeric · 27 Dec 2011

Are you 100% sure its not the monitor thats causing the improper colors? Did you try that monitor on another PC? If it is the onboard video that has failed it may be more involved than just that. There may be other failed components on the motherboard that are preventing the PCIe Video card from being detected correctly. The PCIe bus could be defective too.

TommySTL · 27 Dec 2011

Maguscreed said:

Hp monitors are infamous for popping capacitors, which results in all kinds of strange behavior.
Your problem could also be a bad cable from the computer to the monitor.

Outside of that it seems entirely possible you got a dud card.

Maguscreed, thanks for the reply...we used to have an HP monitor that came with the PC but it went south a couple years ago. We now use a Dell LCD that we use with this desktop.

I did try using another cable and still had the same problem, so I don't believe the cable is causing it.

TommySTL · 27 Dec 2011

Slammer said:

This is probably irrelevant, but just out of curiosity: when you removed power to get it to display correctly, and then it went discolored again, did it discolor slowly over time, or instantly?

Thanks for your reply, Slammer; and no, I don't think it's irrelevant. Every bit of information is helpful...the loss of color is not gradual, it happens instantly. One moment the display is normal; the next the red is gone.

TommySTL · 27 Dec 2011

alphanumeric said:

Are you 100% sure its not the monitor thats causing the improper colors? Did you try that monitor on another PC? If it is the onboard video that has failed it may be more involved than just that. There may be other failed components on the motherboard that are preventing the PCIe Video card from being detected correctly. The PCIe bus could be defective too.

Thanks for your reply, alphanumeric....I didn't try using the monitor with another PC (although I've thought about trying to hook it up to my work laptop), but I did perform the reset I described above with the monitor only - that is, turned off the monitor, removed the power and cable from the monitor only, and then reconnected them after a period of time, and turned it back on. If the problem were with the monitor, I would have expected to see the normal display come up at first, and then go discolored again after a while. But it just comes up discolored, which makes me think it's just displaying what it gets from the PC. And what you say about the possibility of other failed components on the motherboard is unfortunately true, too. I guess there's no way to know.

thomas242 · 27 Dec 2011

I like to say you might have to disable the on board video in the bios before your PC can detect it. I also recommend trying that monitor out on another PC with the cable you plan to use just to be 100% its not the monitor causing the problem. I had an old Hp that the video went out on and it was a pain in the but to get the new card in that computer some of the prebuilt pc just dont like working the way they are sapose to.

TommySTL · 27 Dec 2011

Thanks for your reply, thomas...What did you eventually have to do to get it to work? I actually have gone into the BIOS to change the setting. Although maybe by now I should do a reboot and double-check to make sure the setting stuck...

Slammer · 27 Dec 2011

I have to agree that you should try the monitor on another computer to be 100% certain it's not the monitor. It'd suck if we spent hours working troubleshooting your motherboard only to find it was a problem with the monitor that somehow evaded your power reset test. Alternatively, you could also try hooking up a different monitor to your computer and seeing if the red still goes away. Either one will confirm without a doubt that it's a problem inside your computer. :)

Does it still happen/persist if change screen resolutions? And does it still happen when you're in safe mode?

A few other things to try: In your screen resolution window, click Advanced settings. Choose the Monitor tab and see if changing your Colors: setting makes any positive difference (will probably have a 16 bit and 32 bit option). Changing to a lower bit will reduce overall color quality significantly, but you should still be able to tell if it brings red back.

If you have some sort of program for managing graphics , mess with the setting in there and see if you can find anything that helps. Mine can be found in those same Advanced settings in it's own tab, and in the system tray. Yours should be in at least one of those places, if you have it.

If you can find the driver your graphics are using, you can try downloading them and manually reinstalling them.