Problem installing video card - newbie alert!

Yv

Hey all,

I recently got a new PC, no OS, physically it's alright (as in just running the BIOS etc) & I loaded on Windows 2000 yesterday easy enough. However the display is all funny - in Device Manager there's a yellow question mark beside "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)" which implies to my inexperienced mind that the driver for the video card isn't installed. Windows doesn't have the manufacturer listed when I use the Add/Remove Hardware wizard. As far as I can tell from Google it's a kinda rare card (Nvidia Leadtek 5900xt, or is that Leadtek Nvidia?) & I can't find the driver anywhere.

Or could this be another problem? The monitor is a Hansol 920D, plug & play.

Apologies for lengthy post... all help much appreciated

kmb

http://www.leadtek.nl/nts/uk/index.php?page=support/lists/driver_list.php&sid=1


Driver should be in here!!


regards kieran

Yv

It's not, or at least I can't find it there, there's no driver for 5900 on that page, & nothing on the nVIDIA site either.

jor el

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
Selcet Graphics --> Geforce/TNT2 --> Windows2000/XP
Then press Go. It's one driver for all Geforce series graphics cards. It's a 20MB download though so I hope you have broadband or are patient.

f1refox

It's not graphics driver your missing it's motherboard driver

Khannie

Listen to Jor_el. He's almost certainly correct.

Yv

But is it a GeForce?

Spear

Yv wrote:

But is it a GeForce?

Yes. Just get the driver, and it'll be fine.

zuma

Get your hands on the motherboard drivers and then download the Nvidia Drivers.

Whats the full name of your motherboard??

Manufacturer & then Serial Number.
For example mine is a:
Epox EP-9NPAJ Motherboard

Whats yours??

======================================================
Nvidia Drivers are all the same for all modern Nvidia cards irrespective of maker.
The drivers for my 6600 will work perfectly fine on your card.
Without correct motherboard driver you'll always have problems.....so find out which one you have and then install those before you install the Nvidia drivers.

Yv

Apologies for my ignorance, I only got the pc last week & I don't have it with me to refer to now - I'm going by the rough specs the guy who sold it to me gave, the card probably has GeForce written all over it

Thanks anyways, i'll try that.

Yv

Thanks zuma - didn't see your post there. It's an Abit IC7, that's all I remember, as I said just there a sec ago I don't have it with me to refer to. I found some drivers for it on the Abit site but they're all huge files so one day at a time methinks

Cheers for the advice folks.

zuma

Yv wrote:

Thanks zuma - didn't see your post there. It's an Abit IC7, that's all I remember, as I said just there a sec ago I don't have it with me to refer to. I found some drivers for it on the Abit site but they're all huge files so one day at a time methinks

Cheers for the advice folks.

You only have a dialup connection then???
Im afraid your going to be forced to get them at some time if you want that computer to run properly...so why not now...even on Dialup its still a worthwhile use of your connection.

Get those drivers and install them...then install the nvidia drivers.

Everything should work fine then.

jor el

To clarify a few things for Yv as he seems a little confused, the 5900 is one of Nvidia's many many Geforce GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit). That GPU is then put on a graphics card manufactured by another company, in your case Leadtek. Many other companies make graphics cards based on Nvidia GPUs, MSI, Aopen, Abit, Sparkle and so on. Nvidia don't actually make any graphics cards, they just design the chipset for them.

The driver released by Nvidia should work for any graphics card based on one of their GPUs, such as Gforce 1/2/3/4, 5200, 5600, 5900 and the newer 6600, 6800 and probably the ultra new 7800. These are all in the Geforce series of GPUs.

Installing the Nvidia driver will almost (99.999%) certainly fix your poor display problem, it's unlikely to be motherboard related. However, as Zuma says, it's probably worth updating your motherboard drivers too as the standard drivers with Windows 2000 will be quite old (5+ years at this stage) and not optimised for your board. It'll be a big download for a modem but worth doing. Could you download them in a net cafe or something and put them on a memory card maybe?

shanethemofo

sorry for saying this but u must be new to computers...... OMFG HOW DID U NOT KNOW IT WAS A GEFORCE!!!!!! sorry about that... i often hav random outbursts of rage

Yv

shanethemofo wrote:

sorry for saying this but u must be new to computers...... OMFG HOW DID U NOT KNOW IT WAS A GEFORCE!!!!!! sorry about that... i often hav random outbursts of rage

Because I am new to computers, at least to building & to gaming, also the person didn't give me the full specs / name of the card when I bought it. Thanks a lot, your comment makes me feel wonderfully ignorant, then again I guess I am...

Jor el: Thanks for the explanation, helps a lot, now I understand. I have to install another 5 or 6 drivers anyway, I didn't get any drivers with the PC apart from the standard ones in Windows so I'm working on that.

jor el wrote:

Could you download them in a net cafe or something and put them on a memory card maybe?

I work in a net cafe (:D) so that's the plan, it's just hard to get the time to do so, but I'm working on it. Thanks all.