New vid card, blank screen on start...

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Went out and bought a new vid card today for short money. It's a Radeon x1300 Pro, 256mb, AGP8x. A step up from my old Radeon 9800.

I rip out the old one figuring I wouldn;t have to uninstall everything, because it's the same type of card. When I upgraded from a 9700 to a 9800 I didn't have to uninstall anything because my catalyst drivers just picked it up.

Problem with this one is when I have it hooked up and everything, all I get is a BLANK MONITOR. I've checked everything; everything in the machine is getting power, all the components are live, all fans running all lights blinking, etc--there's just no picture at all, no matter how I connect it. So I know it's not the connection to the power supply or anything.

Should I uninstall all the drivers and try again? Should I go get an update for my motherboard's AGP slot (the manual says to do that but I see no place to get an AGP-slot specific update for my intel i850e motherboard...in fact I couldn't find anything at all for it, as far as downloadable updates goes)?

The weird thing is, the screen goes BLANK, and the led light blinks intermittently. If I unplug it from the video card though, it then behaves like a normal unplugged monitor, shows me the little generic "There is no signal" stuff...but it all cuts the second the thing touches the graphics card connector.

I dunno if this matters but it seems my A: drive's led light stays on indefinitely when I try to boot with the new card in...I can feel both hard drive and CD roms all spinning and such, though, so again I know it's not a power issue.

What the hell man? Any help is appreciated.

(EDIT: Yes, everything is connected correctly...the thing is sitting next to me wide open and when I put the old card back in it works fine so I know I'm not doing anything wrong.)

 

[Yugi_Yami_old]

Try updating your motherboard bios. U prolly dont need to do that but try atleast. If that doesnt help try your card in a friends comp and if it still doesnt work then its ****ed. So u gotta replace it.

 

[Kaination]

My guess is uninstall all the drivers for that video card, instlal the new one.

Cause you had the drivers for the 9700, not the 9800.

 

[Devion]

My guess is uninstall all the drivers for that video card, instlal the new one.

Cause you had the drivers for the 9700, not the 9800.

Its in the bios, drivers wont help here.

Best way to test, is another computer or other monitor.(Computer best choice though)

I fear the worst though.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Well I mean I just bought it, from a big store, it's not like it's used or refurbished or anything...

I'm gonna check my bios, maybe I have something weird on/off in there. It is a newer card, I probably just need to update my motherboard's drivers or something...but man that's tricky. I'm fearful I'll nuke the computer!

 

[Yugi_Yami_old]

Well u might just be unlucky and got a faulty card. **** like that happens. Got no choice but to go back and get a new one.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Well here's what I did. I took it back and got my money back, but I never realized two things:

First - though the box says AGP 8x/4x on it (I only have a 4x), the System Requirements section on it says you need an 8x to use it. So either that was the problem, OR...

...when I bought it the guy put it on a demagnetizing plate to disable the alarm device...I noticed when I left and came back the tag still set off the alarm. I think he might have wiped some **** off the board or something...is that possible?

 

[Yugi_Yami_old]

If i remember right..it is possible to **** it up by putting it close to a magnet -.-' so that might be the prob to. and about the agp thing.. it should work just fine. Seeing as i got a card that needed agp 8x to work on a mb with agp 2x was ****ed but i still got picture and ****.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Yeah...they probably screwed it up. There's no reason it shouldn't work for me, I don't think. Ah well. I couldn't really afford it anyway...

 

[|Overlord|]

All AGP8X cards are backwards compatible with AGP4X slots. I don't know how recent your ati drivers were, but good rule of thumb is to always uninstall drivers before installing a new gfx card. A bios update to your mainboard or a vga bios update to the gfx card may of also helped too. Was it just doing this during OS operation or at post as well?. Sound like the card was DOA.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Did all that. Had the most recent drivers for everything.

I think the dumbass just like, demagnetized all the ram.

As for when it did it, hell, the thing didn't boot at all, that I could tell.

 

[imported_Pemalite]

Hmm. Try the card in another machine. I have had cases where I have put an AGP 8X card into an AGP 4x slot, and The machine wont boot up. Yet other AGP 8x cards will work in it. Another thing that might help, Reset the bios when you install the new card. (There should be a bios reset jumper on the motherboard somewhere). That might also help.

 

[|Overlord|]

Hmm. Try the card in another machine. I have had cases where I have put an AGP 8X card into an AGP 4x slot, and The machine wont boot up. Yet other AGP 8x cards will work in it. Another thing that might help, Reset the bios when you install the new card. (There should be a bios reset jumper on the motherboard somewhere). That might also help.

I took it back and got my money back

A bit hard to do when you no longer have the card =/.

An X1300 isn't really worth it anyway, the difference over a 9800pro isn't really all that big unless you are after AVIVO then I would see the point in getting it. A AGP 7600GS or a X1600PRO would be a better upgrade if you just want to upgrade your gfx card.

If anything, you should upgrade your system to what was suggested in your other thread.

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

The main reason I wanted it was because it had more memory and it was DDR2.

Ehh. I think what I'm going to do is just buy a random part every few weeks and gradually frankenstein me up something hardcore over time...

 

[Yugi_Yami_old]

Well then u can start by buying a new motherboard----> cpu ------> ram(if u dont have enough as it is) -----> gfx card-----> last thing hmm..hdd?

 

[DJ-Ready]

Problem with this one is when I have it hooked up and everything, all I get is a BLANK MONITOR. I've checked everything; everything in the machine is getting power, all the components are live, all fans running all lights blinking, etc--there's just no picture at all, no matter how I connect it. So I know it's not the connection to the power supply or anything.

I had a problem sort of like that a few days ago
I some parts of my moms comp in my brother old comp (faster then moms) so my moms comp would at least be able to run some older games and such (athlon1800 gf4mx)
so I plugged everything together and turned the comp on.
blank screen.
checked everything again.. blank screen.
now since I've know every part of the hardware was working I ended up switching monitors and it actually worked !_!

I have no idea WHY but my moms monitor wont work with her "new" comp but mine does, even though its the same gpu then before.
not too bad though .. hers is better then mine and now we switched hehe

I'd still like to know whats going on anyway >_>

both "normal" crt monitors btw. no fancy highend stuff.

 

[donnierisk]

Same problem with me and I also just switched the monitor, also worked then, I wonder why that happens...

 

[SaiyanPrideXIX]

Yeah. I didn't bother to try a second cause my main one is really good, so if it wasn't working on this, I didn't care to have it work anyhow. Heh. Figures, though.

 

[DiebytheSword]

Pride, i had a 9800 pro, and the x1600 pro was a nice upgrade. Here's the thing though, make absolutely sure to completely uninstall all things ATi prior to upgrading your video card. This will revert you to generic VGA device drivers that work with any board, then install your catalyst or omegas. Remember to plug the power in as close to the PSU as possible. Newer cards are very intolerant of power fluctuations. An x1600 pro 512 will cost you about $130.

 

[Devion]

Pride, i had a 9800 pro, and the x1600 pro was a nice upgrade. Here's the thing though, make absolutely sure to completely uninstall all things ATi prior to upgrading your video card. This will revert you to generic VGA device drivers that work with any board, then install your catalyst or omegas. Remember to plug the power in as close to the PSU as possible. Newer cards are very intolerant of power fluctuations. An x1600 pro 512 will cost you about $130.

A good idea would be to reserve a molex for videocard.

I had a Geforce 6800GT and it would totally flip if I had a HDD with it on the same molex line.