Win7 64 bit won't detect video card

[ozymandias979]

Hi all, help would be greatly appreciated as I've been searching forums for answers for 4 days now!

I recently upgraded to Win7 64 bit, went fine, got the 40-some updates, proceeded to gaming. One night a week later, I left my ipod hooked up to sync while I went to bed and when I got up the next day the sync had completed but I couldn't get my monitor to wake up. Tried a few tricks, eventually discovered that when I plugged an old monitor in (not into my video card), everything was booting up fine. If I need to replace my video card (nvidia 8600gt), not that big a deal, but I'd like to know for sure that it's shot. The card doesn't show up at all in my device manager, just the 6150 onboard vga. I have tried: reseating the video card, ram, and mb battery and updating to the latest driver from nvidia's website (it seems to install fine but don't know if it goes to the right place, it doesn't auto-detect the card the way their site used to). I don't know if after a week it decided my rig wasn't up to specs(2 gb ram, 300w power supply)? I just want to upgrade the right thing, not try everything. Also, if this is just a win7/nvidia video card thing and I could just get some patch that would be fantastic. Hope someone can help, I've seen a dozen others have the same prob but can't find solutions. Thanks.

 

[Dinesh]

Hi, now that you've done almost everything to get your video card working, I guess the card is faulty.
If you could try this video card on another PC, just to find out if its still working. Otherwise, its time for a new video card.

 

[ozymandias979]

I know there's a decent chance that the card is just shot, it's a little over 2 years old, but the fan works and it doesn't smell or look burnt. If anybody has any experience with Win7 having stopped detecting your video card, please post.

 

[Mellon Head]

You might try looking in the BIOS to make sure that the system hasn't defaulted to Internal Graphics, effectively shutting off the 8600GT.

It's worth a shot.

 

[jeffro75]

Not the exact same problem, but I had a GeForce 8500 GT in my Dell Inspiron 531 and one day, after 2 years, the screen went blank with blue lines. I figured it was the card since it seemed to run very hot. I replaced it with a ASUS GeForce 210. Great card for the price.