Complicated Hardware/Software Problem with 6800 GT

[Mithan]

Here is my story:

I own the following:
AMD 3400
ASUS K8V SE Del Motherboard (ver 1.12, second latest bios -.03 or whatever)
1 gig ram (2 x512)
Raptor 74 GIG
400 Watt PSU
NEC 2500A
Some generic DVD-Rom
3 Fans
3.5" floppy
1 Floppy Drive bay fan system (2 fans)


The 6800 GT and my system was running totally fine before this.
---

Yesterday, I bought and installed a WD 120 gig ATA133 HD.
I hooked up the HD to to the primary IDE slot, the secondary has the two dvd's on it.
The Hard Drive was set up to run as my secondary drive, while the Raptor is my primary (running of SATA1).

Now, I am experienced computer user, and have built several systems from scratch, so I know how to take things apart and put them back together. This time, I took out my 6800 GT and set it on the table, gently. I also removed my PSU because I wanted to do some cable management.

After I put everything back in, I restarted my system and this is where things get weird.

When the system loaded up the first time, right after the Windows XP load screen (before the blue login screen), I got some "garbage" on the screen. BAsically, random artifacts all over the place that didn't move, THEN the Monitor went into Sleep Mode on me.

I rebooted a few times, same thing.
I checked all my cables, connections, etc, same thing.

I went into safe mode and the system started up fine.

I then reloaded normally, system did the same thing again, except this time the screen stayed black and the monitor shut off after a few seconds.


So, I loaded up safe mode and removed the nVidia Drivers then rebooted it again, this time the system started up normally.

I reinstalled the drivers, and the problem returned.

I started in Safe mode and removed the drivers and then did this a few time with different drivers, and the problem still happens.

As I write this, I am using the 6800 GT, but without the nvidia drivers, which makes this card SLOW.

Now, I have tried disconnecting all the fans in the computer, plus the DVD's and th second hard drive and just starting up with the 6800 GT and Raptor, on seperate cables, to no effect. I have even tried the card on every power cable, no good effect.

I also went a little further:
I took my old 9700 Pro and put it into my system, to see if the AGP port or motherboard was somehow damaged, then I installed ATI 4.10 drivers and the 9700 Pro ran fine.

I took the 6800 GT and put it in my old system, and ran it, it ran the Half Life 2 Counter Strike video test fine.



What could the problem be?

I am totally stumped


Does anybody have any ideas? Any help would really be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Best guess is the addition of the 120GB HDD was to much for your PSU, I'd try running the system w/ just the Raptor as a drive and completely disconect everything else and see if your system will work properly w/ the GT, also use Driver cleaner to get rid of all the old drivers before loading the new Nvidia ones.

Edit: woops looks like you tried this already, I'm kinda stumped, but I would still suggest running it in this config and removing all the drivers via Driver cleaner then redownload the latest Nvidia drivers and load those and see what happens.

 

[LordPhoenix]

It's probably your PSU. I'd get an ANTEC 480W.

 

[stevty2889]

You didn't mention what brand your power supply was. The addition of the 120gig hard drive may have been too much for it. If it's not a brand name PSU, and has a low amperage on the 12v rail, I would be highly suspect that your PSU is getting ready to die.

 

[Mithan]

I just pulled my main PSU and tried out a Enermax 350watt cpu. Only thing connected to it was the motherboard, raptor and the 6800 GT.

Sigh.

Same crap

Im guessing that either
a: Card is shot.
b: Board is shot.

If the card is shot though, why would it have worked in my brothers system?

If the board is shot, why did the 9700 Pro work?

I dont get this.

 

[Viper96720]

Plugged in thepower to the video card? Maybe try using driver cleaner if you haven't.