Graphics card woe

[chocolatepossum]

I would really appreciate it if somebody could aid me in my struggle to get my new graphics card to work. It's a Geforce 6800 that I got from ebay a week ago and haven't been able to get it working. The card itself is not faulty, because it works in my friend's PC. I don't think the problem is with an insufficient power supply either. I've downloaded all the latest drivers, and I tried to disable the onboard graphics thingy, but I can't find one listed in device manager.

My friend, who is a lot more technically proficient than me, thinks there is some kind of software problem that is stopping the card from working, although he doesn't know what it could be. I appreciate that it will be hard for anyone to make a diagnosis without actually looking at the machine, but I am at my wits' end, and ready to try anything to get this damn thing up and running :mad:

Anyway, like I said, any advice would be very much appreciated.

[Smike]

More details, please.

In what way does it not work? No picture? Wierd fuzzy lines? "Signal out of range"?

What kind of monitor do you and your friend have?

[Vitnir]

I asume the extra power supply cable(s) to the gfx-card is/are plugged in?
The only thing I could think of other than power issues is that you havent uninstalled the old drivers before you booted up the system with the new card in place.

[chocolatepossum]

More details, please.

In what way does it not work? No picture? Wierd fuzzy lines? "Signal out of range"?

What kind of monitor do you and your friend have?



When I try and run a game with 3d graphics, the 3d objects disappear as I approach them. When I try and test the card using a benchmarking programme, what should be a load of fighters flying across a blue sky comes out as a couple of propellors and puffs of smoke moving across a black screen, with lots of weird lines thrown in for good measure.

My friend and I have both got standard plug n play monitors.

I asume the extra power supply cable(s) to the gfx-card is/are plugged in?
The only thing I could think of other than power issues is that you havent uninstalled the old drivers before you booted up the system with the new card in place

I'm fairly sure the power supply is connected correctly. I have tried to uninstall the old drivers, but i don't seem to be able to find any. There doesn't even seem to be any onboard system listed in device manager. Do the old drivers have to be uninstalled before the new card and drivers can be installed?

[kevin]

have you tried a different slot in your machine? Perhaps the slot itself is bad?

[BenK]

My dad had a problem with a new video card years ago, I think it was that it didn't work in a particular game we tried but otherwise it was fine. We tried changing the video settings and different drivers, newer and older. It actually ended up being the BIOS after updating that it worked fine.

[chocolatepossum]

My friend's just been fiddling about with the BIOS. Still no joy :(

Oh, and the reason I couldn't find any onboard hardware device in device manager is because my friend had already disabled it apparently. He couldn't find any drivers for it though.

[chocolatepossum]

have you tried a different slot in your machine? Perhaps the slot itself is bad?

Don't think it can be the slot, because other video cards still work in it.

[Mongrel]

What's your power supply rated for? There's a chance that's it's not beefy enough for the card. You'll probably want one rated for 400-450W with that card.

For the drivers download Driver Cleaner (http://www.drivercleaner.net/) and grab the latest set of Omega drivers ( http://www.omegadrivers.net). Run Driver cleaner in safe mode to remove all remnantsof you old drivers then install the Omega drivers.
Although you didn't mention it if you had an ATI card previously don't forget to use DC on them as well, ATI and NVidia drivers don't play well together

[chocolatepossum]

My power supply is only 300 actually, but I plugged in my friend's 400w supply and it still didn't work, whereas it worked fine in his PC with the same power supply.

I suppose power could still be the problem ( the rest of my PC is higher spec than his, I think), but I'm reluctant to spend money on a new supply unless I really need it.

[Vitnir]

Ok when you said the gfx-card didnt work I asumed nothing worked = black screen.
Have you got the DirectX drivers updated as well?
A 300W PSU sounds low but if it's good quality it might well be enough especialy if its one of the more budget ones in the 6000 series.

[chocolatepossum]

Yep, I've got the latest directx drivers installed.

[De_Bunk]

Geforce 6800...

I'm sure it requires a minimum 450-500 watt supply..


DB

[a_unique_person]

My power supply is only 300 actually, but I plugged in my friend's 400w supply and it still didn't work, whereas it worked fine in his PC with the same power supply.

I suppose power could still be the problem ( the rest of my PC is higher spec than his, I think), but I'm reluctant to spend money on a new supply unless I really need it.

My experience is the numbers on the side of the power supply mean nothing, if it's just a no-name brand. A 300 that's a cheapie may not be capable of even 200. Try swapping the PS, if it's not too much trouble.

But in this case, it sounds like drivers to me. Try to clear out all the old drivers first, uninstall direct-x as well.

[SirPhilip]

I would really appreciate it if somebody could aid me in my struggle to get my new graphics card to work. It's a Geforce 6800 that I got from ebay a week ago and haven't been able to get it working. The card itself is not faulty, because it works in my friend's PC. I don't think the problem is with an insufficient power supply either. I've downloaded all the latest drivers, and I tried to disable the onboard graphics thingy, but I can't find one listed in device manager. We have them at work, although they are the Apple workstation version, the 6800 DDL, which is designed to scale up to 2560x1900. I wasn't impressed at all. My advice, take it back and exchange it for a 6600GT, or better, invest in a 7950 GX2 and upgrade your PSU if you plan on getting the most out of games for the next three years. Since Half Life 2, game content has taken a steady upward trajectory in shader and texture bloat and every developer is going to be making liberal use of these realtime bells-and-whistles to emulate hollywood style visual effects to sell itself.

[chocolatepossum]

OK, I use drivercleaner, installed those omega drivers, as well as some new Sis ones, and it now appears to be working! I say "appears" because I have yet to try it on a game, so fingers crossed...

[Apollyon]

Ahhh. You have an SiS chipset. The problem might have been related to the SiS chipset drivers, specifically the AGP driver. Updating those drivers hopefully fixed the problem for you.