36 replies to this topic

[Dave Schmidt]

So I take it without the drivers you can run windows in a somewhat stable manner?

Yes, my video card allows me to have my screen working without having drivers on it. however, i am limited as what colors and screen resolution I can use.

Safe mode disables those drivers, so I can run in safe mode after I try something that fails, just the time to erase my work and reboot to get back to normal with no driver...

Some other person offered me to try a different driver, I will do this, then maybe think about power supply, or even socket, I have 2 PCI-E sockets on my Mother Board...

Will advise.

[Monkey]

Dave what size power supply are you running now?

[Gremlin_FLG]

What is the brand of your PSU as well? Is it generic??

I have bought a generic PSU and it took out my memory and that was the last generic PSU i ever bought. I have used ANTEC and now I own a 620 Corsair PSU. It works great.

[Dave Schmidt]

ok, power suply is 450w, came boxed with my case, model ATX ALPHA 602BK
here is what's written on the box itself:

raidmax™ model no. rx-450k (ky-550atx) atx 12v

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dc output .|............|..........|.............|.........|............|.............| total output
current | +3.3v | +5v | +12v | -5v | -12v | +5vsb | wattage
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10a / 5a | 28.0a | 34.0a| 22a | 0.5a | 0.8a | 2.0a | 450W
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I doubt it could be it, I even had tried and sucessfully played both my battlefields and all was going great and smooth... maybe it could be a problem that occurs with time, but it's my first issue on this.

Edit:Sorry for the bad lining of the thing...

[Dave Schmidt]

Also, don't worry... I try things between every message, I just don't write every change I make, up to now:

I reinstalled it, many ways, tried some other drivers proposed via PM by some other folks, tried installing it the "old school" way, all is left is two option before I know what to do with my PSU:

Unplug and remove the motherboard battery for 5 minutes or more then put it back and restart (should erase the motherboard's memory (mmh... makes me think about the little flashy thing MIB uses...))

And switching my card from this PCI-E socket to the other one on my board.

[Gremlin_FLG]

Just for shens do you know anyone else who has a PSU that you can try just to rule out that PSU is the problem??

[Dave Schmidt]

Moongamers, Thank you!

Problem fixed!

Special thanks to all of you that helped me out;

Monkey T_C, thank you for putting your heart into this, you have been a real good allied in this search, I will always remind this.

Gremlin_FLG, good idea for the PSU, might be useful for me to remember / learn about power supplies... (and Welcome, I missed your first post!)

Leeham, your idea of the socket being not working properly / not being the right one was the final step that brought back my computer to it's peek, Thank you!

Pest_Control, thanks for being fast on the reply like you have been, and for the jumper Idea, it was good, I know on older system jumpers could change alot, good thing to remember.

Katmandu, Thank you for your propositions, I'll keep in mind the battery trick, might be helpful in the future and I will not forget you just because you PM'd me instead of replying here

And from now, I will keep an eye on this forum, it's amazing what the help of friends can do, I'll try paying back this help by helping with my own humble knowledge of computers.

On a final note, I'll be more cautious in the future if I'm to upgrade something, i'll question myself before I do as to "is the thing satisfying my needs, or am I just upgrading to see what will be next?"..

Personal thought: Upgrading Reminds me of playing Black Jack, when you have a hand of 16, the dealer might be 18, and you hit just to see if you can beat / even him with a 2...

[Gremlin_FLG]

So what was the problem? What did you do??

[Monkey]

He had his card in the wrong PCI-e slot from the looks of what he said.

[Dave Schmidt]

Yes, I have 2 PCI-E ports,
one Yellow, which supports PCI-E x4 transfer rate (my card was plugged in that one)
and a white one, PCI-E x16...

After RTFM (which I just did this morning), I learnt that the white port suits better for Video cards... it has more performance. I don't know how it even worked for nearly a day on the other port, maybe my thing with flashing the BIOS had remembered my motherboard it's better to have my video card installed in the other slot... I can't confirm for the moment.

You see, It's my first built of a computer, and I made this over night on friday, I was almost finished when I installed my video card, and only was reading the manual I had to build up a computer, which did not tell me which slot in MY motherboard it would be best to put the video card, so I used the one that seemed easyer to access.. I should have read my motherboard's manual while doing this, same way that I read it for plugging my PSU to it, and all other material, I guess I was so excited to be almost over it did not get in my mind.

[pest control]

how can there be wrong PCI-e? I dont really know much about it but logically they are supposed to be same, just the number of lanes to chipset makes them different as in x1 or X4 or X16, and video card would work regardless to that. Its possible that first slot didnt work and that means something is wrong with PCI controller in motherboard, correct me if Im wrong.

Dave, tell us how you fixed it, these threads are good knowledge base and we owe it to the ones that follow, you cant believe how many problems I solved by looking into others experiences that had it before .

EDIT: oops, missed your post Dave. so you cant connect video card in PCIeX1 and X4, I didnt know that

[Dave Schmidt]

how can there be wrong PCI-e? I dont really know much about it but logically they are supposed to be same, just the number of lanes to chipset makes them different as in x1 or X4 or X16, and video card would work regardless to that. Its possible that first slot didnt work and that means something is wrong with PCI controller in motherboard, correct me if Im wrong.

Dave, tell us how you fixed it, these threads are good knowledge base and we owe it to the ones that follow, you cant believe how many problems I solved by looking into others experiences that had it before .

MS-7238 Mainboard

Slots

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express Slots
PCI Express architecture provides a high performance I/O infrastructure for Desktop Platforms with transfer rates starting at 2.5 Giga transfers per second over a PCI Express x1 lane for Gigabit Ethernet, TV Tuners, 1394 controllers, and general purpose I/O. Also, desktop platforms with PCI Express Architecture will be designed to deliver highest performance in video, graphics, multimedia and other sophisticated applications. Moreover, PCI Express architecture provides a high performance graphics infrastructure for Desktop Platforms doubling the capacity of existing AGP 8x designs with transfer rates of 4.0 GB/s over a PCI Express x16 lane for graphics controllers, while PCI Express x1 supports transfer rate of 250 MB/s

note down the page:
If you have a PCI-E x16 graphics card, please always install it to the PCI Express x16 (White/ PCI_E1) slot to ensure the performance of graphics card.

Well... there is nothing said interesting there... NOTHING.

On the box, the only thing said is my card has a memory bandwidth of 10.7 GB/s (only thing that may refer to the text above)

P.s.: Sorry for late reply, I had to bring my car to the garage, and come back on foot.

EDIT: oops, missed your post Dave. so you cant connect video card in PCIeX1 and X4, I didnt know that

Well, PCI-E x1 is a waaaay smaller port, mostly designed for other types of cards, as the book says, it seems to be good for PCI-E network cards.

[Leeham]

Glad I helped get it fixed, albeit slightly indirectly

I hope you have some serious fun with that rig

[Dave Schmidt]

Just playing 42 is a blast!
I did not know what anything in this game really looked like... I was playing with the lowest graphic quality you could imagine...

Battlefield 2 runs sweeeeet too, after trying it, I did not see any lag or anything due to the game itself, only my router would make me lag when my gf refreshed her forum pages....

[WTBass]

Hey Dave, you should see how the new rig handles DoD!

[Animal Mother]

Yeah Dave,
See how the new rig handles DOD:S

Glad you were able to get your problems solved.
As far as flashing BIOS,those can be very fickle!
If your BIOS isn't too too old,and your not having
any issues,LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE.....IMO

[Comet]

Wow, I too am impressed with the unrelenting help offered.

Way to go guys, most impressive!