New Graphics Card Causing Trouble

alan_simon

Hi folks,

I've a bit of a tough one here that I would appreciate some help with. I'm running a 2 year old computer, and I recently decided to upgrade the system. I stuck in a new ASUS EAH 3650 graphics card and 2 gigs of RAM, leaving my specs as follows;

FUJITSU SIEMENS P5SD2-FM (latest 0803 BIOS)
Pentium 4 516 @ 2933 MHz
2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM
WDC WD2000BB-55GUC0 ATA 200GB HDD
ASUS EAH3650 Series
Windows XP Home SP2

Now the problem is that once I had installed the latest drivers for the Card, when I reset the computer, it won't boot. It gets as far as the windows loading screen, and then the blue bar stops. This problem also occurs in SP3, but not in SP1 (but my computer doesn't like SP1 at all). The problem doesn't happen in Vista, but my audio playback is crazy choppy, and games are ridiculously slow. Figuring this is a problem with the grapics card, I went into Safe mode, disabled the card and rebooted. Everything started up fine. I then enabled the card, in windows, and it turned on, everything fine. When I reset, the computer crashed again. Any ideas?

Also, when I have re enabled the card in windows, the audio seems to be affected (its built in audio, from the MB) and games are behaving worse than when I played them with my x1300 (an old and crappy GPU). I'm a bit concerned as my system should be able to (according to canyourunit.com) play the latest games on recommended or high graphics, and now it can't play Rome Total Way.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers, Alan

Scram

Id ur XP install a fresh install? I thing from what ive read it isnt so that leave the problem with XP.

Xp/vista doesnt like you adding new hardware all of as sudden and in most cases you will to reinstall your OS. If you want to safe endless frustration and headaches a new install of XP may be needed or you could try using a program called driver cleaner in XP safe mode to remove any entries of the previous GFX card you had.

AlmightyCushion

Moved from Comp & Tech.

alan_simon

sorry, thought I had it in the right forum.

I've fresh installed XP SP1, a fresh install XP SP2 and a fresh vista install, all with the graphics card already in the system. Nothing seems to work. I thought it might be a problem with the psu, but other than that I have no idea.

Cheers

TerrorFirmer

Strange one. Contrary to what someone said above no-one re-installs their OS just for a new card, that would be ludicrous. I'd have thought it was the PSU as well; but whatever about games, the 3650 wouldn't draw that much power at startup to affect the machine - unless the PSU was really, really low-rated. What wattage is it? Is it a PCI-E or AGP card? Have you tested the machine with your old ram, and the new card? Sounds more like a ram issue just from those symptoms....

Scram

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Strange one. Contrary to what someone said above no-one re-installs their OS just for a new card, that would be ludicrous. I'd have thought it was the PSU as well; but whatever about games, the 3650 wouldn't draw that much power at startup to affect the machine - unless the PSU was really, really low-rated. What wattage is it? Is it a PCI-E or AGP card? Have you tested the machine with your old ram, and the new card? Sounds more like a ram issue just from those symptoms....

Yeah it would be, but i was just pointing out that it was a possable factor but since its a clean OS already it clearly isnt the problem:cool:

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Sounds more like a ram issue just from those symptoms....

How does a Ram issue explain the fact that vista has no problem?

Anyways i would ignore the latest drivers from the Ati Site and use the ones on the Support CD you got with the Card first. Sometimes they are different to suit the GFX card.

See if that helps. Ensure you have the latest motherboard chipset drivers and audio drivers installed for XP this could be the problem.

alan_simon

hey thanks for the replies, im very grateful for all of your input. i've tried it with the old RAM, a clean os install, an old install. I flashed the BIOS to the latest reason, and have the latest audio drivers (im not too sure how a dodgy audio driver could cause windows to crash on boot). At the moment i've put the windows SP1 back onto the system, and all's hunky dory. Except for one key point; I've no audio. So another problem, how to get Windows XP SP1 to recognise a Realtek HDA device built for SP2, which windows is refusing to call anything other than a PCI device.

I'm bringing the computer into the UCD Comp Labs on Friday, as some of the tech geniuses inside agreed to cast a glance at it:D so hopefully that will sort it, but who knows.

Oh, and the PSU is a generic 350W. Im running one HDD, 2 DVD drivers, a Wifi card, 2gb RAM, the EAH 3650, and a P4. I think that the PSU should be ok for that, no? The card doesn't have a seperate power supply though, it takes all its power from the PCI-Ex16 slot. Could this be a contributing factor?

Again, Thanks a mil for all your help,

Alan

Scram

hmm 350 watt is very low for todays GFX cards your normally need at least 500watt but how that would stop windows booting ive no idea.

You could try a new PSU in fact id recommend you do for the components your running need way more power than 350 watt a minimum of 450watts.

Sorry i wasnt able to help better take care

TerrorFirmer

350w is fine for that class of card, unless it was an awful piece of junk altogether - which is unlikely coming with a Fujitsu Siemens PC, might not be the best PSU around but they're usually decent. The fact that it's powered completely from the 16x lane tells you it doesn't draw too much power, probably not a whole lot more then the old X1300.

If all else fails - at this stage I'm not quite sure what would be causing this problem - a basic 5.1 sound card costs about 10 euro even in the likes of PC World, to solve your audio problem.

alan_simon

cheers again for the replies. I think i may have somewhat sorted the system now. I disabled the onboard sound, on a hunch, and installed SP2. Bingo, everything works fine. Once I turned the sound back on, everything locks up again. So it would appear to be an issue of a conflict between the sound device and the graphics card. I guess ill have to buy a new sound card to get everything working. Cheers guys,

Alan

alan_simon

hey guys, thanks again for all the help

luckily i was able to sort it out. apperantly windows thought that there was a sound device on my graphics card (don't ask) and once I disabled that everything worked hunky dory! computers are funny things, huh.

Thanks again,

Alan

TerrorFirmer

Can't believe I didn't think of that, those cards out output audio as well over hdmi, windows/drivers will install them and select them as the standard sound device - had the exact same 'problem' with a 2600XT myself and only figured it out after I looked at the audio properties.