GF4 works in old comp but not new?

[sargas]

Hello
I have recently replaced an old V5 5500 with a Gainward Geforce4 MX440 for a friend, however, upon startup, the BIOS posts, but the screen is no longer updated after the phrase "Checking NVRAM....", meaning the computer boots into windows fine (you can hear the startup sound) but the screen is still at the AMI BIOS Checking NVRAM place. I have tried numerous things to fix the problem:
I checked the card in a different board and it worked, (an athlon 750 in a FIC AZ11)
I updated the mainboard bios to the latest version,
I unplugged all unnecesary cards and drives,
I cleared the CMOS,
I cried and begged it to work.

All to no avail. I thought it might have been the power supply, but wouldnt this cause the problem to happen at radom stages? Can someone give me suggestions on this problem or tell me about their own experience with this? Here are the specs:

ECS K7S5A (SiS735 chipset based)
Athlon XP 1600+
Gainward Geforce4 MX440
256MB DDR
Souble Blaster Live Value
Focus Networks Ethernet
20 gig HD
Creative CD-RW
300W power supply

thanks for your help!

 

[nemesismk2]

Sounds to me like some of the drivers for the V5 5500 have been left in your windows system directory. Make sure all of the files related to the V5 5500 have been deleted, you may need to delete them manually.

 

[lethologica]

Man these forums are a bitch to join. First no hotmail, then I had to wait for the email, then I had to log on and find this message again.

...Anyway, I think its your refresh rate. Try booting up in safe mode (f5 after bios, if that doesnt work, use f8 and select safe mode) Then from there delete the video cards from device manager and i think the monitor too.

Hope it works

 

[sargas]

but the problem happens before the bios starts checking the ram and detecting the disks, how could it be drivers? arent they not loaded yet?

 

[tenoc]

The seating of the ram in the slots is very tight on these boards, make sure the
clip securing the RAM wasn't disturbed when the new card was installed.

Also the video card in the AGP slot.

It may be necessary to do it several times.

 

[nemesismk2]

<< but the problem happens before the bios starts checking the ram and detecting the disks, how could it be drivers? arent they not loaded yet? >>



You said that the computer boots into windows fine? How can it boot into windows fine if it doesn't get past the bios startup checks?

 

[jamie2833]

i think he means the actual computer boots into windows but the monitor just displays what is at boot-up, the RAM testing screen bit. so before the drivers would have had time to do anything something would have gone wrong because it sticks at that screen.

have you checked all your hardware is installed correctly? sometimes i have inserted a graphics card and it had loads of problems, fuzzy pictures all blocky, numerous crashes.....all because i didn't push it in far enough, you might have a little bit of dust on the connectors or something?

you could also try using a mixture of compnents from different systems to narrow down what might be causing the problem, like RAM and HDD etc.
one other thing i can think of is your OS, i use dual boot with windows XP Pro as first boot and windows 2000 Pro as second boot, i installed some drivers for my soundblaster 5.1 platinum in XP and i cant get past scandisk without it crashing. in windows 2000 Pro it's fine.

let us know what OS you have.

in my opinion i think the MX440 is crud anyway, not worth an upgrade from a Geforce 2 GTS 64MB PRO anyway, i couldn't get the drivers to work for mine! i sent the b!tch back!