[LSchatt]

I saw an article about this on your forum but no one got around to answering the question - how do we replace one with the other? We have a GEforce 5200 graphics card - AGP and a mother board with appropriate slots. This board has worked on this PC before but because it's a POS HP that has been in the shop 4 times we've had to pull the card out every time it was sent and subsequently lost the drivers - I have downloaded them from the GEforce website and am ready to go with them.

The biggest problem is that as soon as I plug in the new board, I can't configure because I don't have any display. This happens even if I leave it (the monitor) plugged into the motherboard (Intel Xtreme Graphics default I guess). I've had the thought of installing a second monitor off the GEforce card using XP's hardware install but you can't install if you can't see the screen.

We'd probably just ignore it and not play around with the graphics on such flaky machine but our new Star Wars game, Empire at War, says we need 3D hardware and we know the card does work with this motherboard.

Do I have to alter BIOS display settings? If I do, how do I access it? (I forgot what key to press.)
Should I deinstall the Xtreme Graphics drivers? Obviously, this is a very touchy situation as I'm sunk if I permanently lose my display.

Thanks for your help.

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you did not list the model of your HP pc

Normally, hitting f1, f2, or del gets you into bios.

Normally, you need not do anything in bios, though in a few cases, you did need to disable your internal video adapter.

This can be done in a couple of ways depending on the adapter. Sometimes, its as simple as VIDEO ADAPTER Enable or Disable, and sometimes you change the video memory buffer size to 0


In most cases, you would drop your new video card in the slot, plug the monitor into it, and boot your PC. Windows will install default vga drivers for the new card.

When in windows, uninstall the intel drivers, then do a driver clean with drivercleaner pro (free version)

http://www.drivercleaner.net/

Then install the nvidia drivers

[gerryf]

you did not list the model of your HP pc

Normally, hitting f1, f2, or del gets you into bios.

Normally, you need not do anything in bios, though in a few cases, you did need to disable your internal video adapter.

This can be done in a couple of ways depending on the adapter. Sometimes, its as simple as VIDEO ADAPTER Enable or Disable, and sometimes you change the video memory buffer size to 0


In most cases, you would drop your new video card in the slot, plug the monitor into it, and boot your PC. Windows will install default vga drivers for the new card.

When in windows, uninstall the intel drivers, then do a driver clean with drivercleaner pro (free version)

http://www.drivercleaner.net/

Then install the nvidia drivers

[LSchatt]

Sorry about the confusion - not AGP card, it is whatever the other is called...?? I don't have slots for AGP at all. Computer is HP Pavilion a404x.

No screen when I plug in card onto motherboard, plug in monitor onto card and boot.
No screen when card is plugged in and monitor plugged into motherboard and boot.
Looked at bios and it's set to PCI - I tried switching it to"Onboard" but didn't make any difference on bringing up screen.

Questions - why does this card render monitor dead when put into motherboard even if monitor is plugged into motherboard? Are two slots dead?
Will it work if I use that link you provided and first wipe drivers, shut down PC and plug in card and reboot expecting it to look for Nvidia drivers?

NOTE: We have an old homeade PC which has both type of slots and the board GEforce board works on that one (so it's not dead) but game bails while loading as it's REALLY slow.

Thanks again

[gerryf]

I download the user manual and there is nothing in the HP manual to indicate you need to do anything in bios.

Are there any beeps at startup?

Since the card works in the other system, I am leading toward a power supply issue. The 5200 uses a good deal more electricty then the integrated card and I am always amazed at how low the HPs spec their power supplies. I opened an HP the other day that was less than two years old and there was a 230watt PSU in it!

To test this theory, remove the power supply from your other pc. You do not need to fully install it in the HP.

Unplug, then Open the case and ground yourself by touching some exposed metal.

Set the psu from the other PC on some phonebooks next to the open case.


Unplug the 20 pin molex from the HP psu from the motherboard and plug in the external PSU (you can leave the PSU mounted in the case).

You can also unplug the 4-pin molex from the drives and plug the external psu's into those.

Plug the power cord into the external PSU and press the start button on the PC...should power right up.

Do you get a signal?

If it does, you need a power supply. Be careful, some HPs have proprietary PSUs--normal ones will not fit (unless you happen to be handy with a rotary cutting tool).

[LSchatt]

Power supply sounds like a winner except I really don't want to go that far. Again, this GEforce card USED to work on this PC. The only thing that has changed is the hard drive. Would a new one drain the power supply so it can't power the card? When we bought the game, we assumed that this GEforce card would fulfill these requirements so we wouldn't have to buy another. That looks like it's moot.

Since we really do want to play this game, maybe we can buy another graphics card? Can anyone help with that? The game requirements says, 32 MB graphics card with HW T&L. When we checked the system, it says 3D hardware not installed but everything else passes.

If there's some other card we can buy that will fulfill these requirements, please let us know.