My new video card only brought on a new problem!

[philippo]

Well, I have managed to come up with another video card problem...

I have a Dell Inspirion 530 with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. Recently the original graphics card failed (128 MB GeForce 8300GS).

I talked about that issue in an earlier post

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/221296-my-nvidia-8300gs-card-dying.html

As mentioned in that post I did cobble together an old fan onto that old graphics card which worked for quite a while. I also purchased a 512 MB DDR3 GeForce 8400GS as a replacement had that ready if needed.

My cobbled card finally went south again so I shut down and carefully installed that card (the new NVIDEA 512 MB GeForce 8400 GS).

The first "post install" start-up showed the normal "Starting Windows" logo: the floating balls coming together as the pulsing windows logo -- all in the normal high resolution. Then it all switched into low resolution and finally opened Windows "as if in safe mode", appearing to be using only the Standard VGA Graphics Adaptor.

I opened the Installation CD that came with the graphics card and read the installation manual. I then clicked Autorun and installed everything that came up. Opted for the "Clean Install" and though everything took quite a long time, the installation appeared to proceed normally. I was then asked to restart to complete the installation, agreed, Windows shut down and began to restart.

Everything on that boot-up appeared normal at first, I saw the Dell Logo, heard the first POST "beep", boot screen showed "starting windows in 5 seconds, counted down, screen went black for a second (also as usual), then it started with Dell Logo again.

This endless loop is all that happens; F8 has no effect at all so I can't even boot into safe mode now.

Thanks MUCH for any...Help?

 

[James7679]

I will revert to my original question that I asked in your previous thread, do you have onboard graphics? I will answer for you, yes it does. Does this problem present when connecting your monitor to the VGA out on your MoBo? Did you clear the CMOS upon installing the new GPU?

 

[philippo]

Apologies for not answering your earlier question; yes I do (obviously) have onboard graphics but it appears there's no VGA out on my motherboard, there's no 15 pin connection that I can find...

And no, I did not know the need to "clear the CMOS" upon a new card installation -- it should still be in the "factory default" state anyway

 

[philippo]

Does this problem present when connecting your monitor to the VGA out on your MoBo?

OK, the answer is no...when someone finally showed me that the onboard graphics connection was under a black plastic snap-off plate in the back of the computer I removed the graphics card and tried connecting the monitor there.

The problem did not occur under these circumstances...

 

[James7679]

You have one of two problems; either your PCIe slot is bad, or your GPU(PCIe 2.0) is not backwards compatible with your MoBo(PCIe 1a).

 

[James7679]

Check with Dell and see if there is a BIOS update available.

 

[philippo]

Thanks for the reply!
You seemed to have ruled out the possibility that the new 8400GS is bad, correct?

Is there any way to troubleshoot the PCIe slot to see if it's faulty?

And yes, there is a BIOS update -- might that help the "backwards compatibility" issue, if that is the problem?

 

[James7679]

I am not really sure, the release notes only states that it changes the logo? I don't think the new card is bad. You can try running Memtest86+ and see if there is a problem with the memory also.

 

[Joshatdot]

You have one of two problems; either your PCIe slot is bad, or your GPU(PCIe 2.0) is not backwards compatible with your MoBo(PCIe 1a).

I'd think this might be the case .. your motherboard is only rated at PCIe 1.0A .. and the video card is PCIe 2.0 or maybe 2.1. Most 2.0 cards should work in older 1.0A slots, but many 2.1 cards do not work in 1.0A slots.

 

[philippo]

Joshadot -- you say that:
[/QUOTE] Most 2.0 cards should work in older 1.0A slots...[/QUOTE]

Well, the box the card came in says: "This graphics card requires PCI Express or PCI Express 2.0 compliant motherboard with one x16 graphics slot", so I'm guessing that this card doesn't fall into the group "most..." that you mention.

 

[James7679]

Well, the box the card came in says: "This graphics card requires PCI Express or PCI Express 2.0 compliant motherboard with one x16 graphics slot", so I'm guessing that this card doesn't fall into the group "most..." that you mention.

That's what I was getting at here;

You have one of two problems; either your PCIe slot is bad, or your GPU(PCIe 2.0) is not backwards compatible with your MoBo(PCIe 1a).

 

[Joshatdot]

Any way you can try a different gfx card .. or try the one you bought in a diff computer?