Windows 7 - Does this mean my video card experienced a hardwarefail

I recently unplugged my nvidia 9800gx2 and put in my old nvidia 7900gs. My computer was able to start up with that video card plugged in whereas it wasn't able to when my 9800gx2 was plugged in. Does this mean my 9800gx2 experienced a hardware failure and thus I have to replace it?

Yes.

Edit: You used the same card slot?

Wound the computer not boot at all with the 9800 card or would Windows just not load?

Could be as easy as a driver or it could be the vid card. Does it start in safe mode with the 9800?

I reiterate, my computer does NOT start at all when I press the power button if I have my 9800 plugged in. The power turns on but nothing happens after.

In that case, I tend to think it is a bad card especially you plugged the 7900 into the same slot. Bad cards happen; I bought a brand new one that was defective out of the box.

More than likely it is a bad video card, however what zigzag3143 suggests isn't out of the ordinary.

Have you removed the old drivers (7900gs) before installing the 9800gx2? If not, give it a try. And giving zigzag's suggestion a try doesn't hurt anything. At least you'll know for sure if the card is dead. You did come here for help.

Just trying to help.

Peace.

This one morning when I turned on my PC, I received a message on the bottom right corner of the screen saying that 8800 drivers were installed and the computer needed to be restarted. I was a bit confused because my 9800 is not a 8800. So I just went ahead and restarted the PC, bad idea (not that I could do anything because you can't install another driver without restarting at least once) because after that my PC wouldn't even start up with my 9800gx2 plugged (which oddly my PC starts up just fine with no video cards plugged in or with my 7900gs which is what I'm using right now).

I got the card way back in May 2008, it didn't stop working until recently.

Well then, I guess you know your answer...bad video card.

Good luck