[mikem1956]

Dell 8200 desktop, 1.8ghz, 512 ram, 40 gig hard drive master, 160 gig hard drive slave, nVidia Geforce 5700 LE 8x AGP with 128 mb, Creative Live Value sound card, CD-RW.

I recently upgraded my Dell 8200 1.8gHz with more memory, an additional hard drive, and a new graphics card. The new memory and hard drive are working fine. However, I am having some issues that I think come from the new graphics card.

I had a 64mb NVidia Geforce2 MX graphics card. I deleted the old driver. I added a PNY Geforce 5700 LE. Then I noticed that my mouse would hesitate when I moved it, then it would jump and catch up. My son noticed that the same thing would happen in his game--Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic--the movement would be jerky. I don't play games much, but I opened up the old Microsoft Pinball game that come with XP. It too was jerky. For awhile, my sound didn't work, but it seems okay now, although it doesn't appear as loud to me as before. I added the newest driver. I have checked everything I know to check.

So, after this, I decided that I had done something wrong. So I proceeded to deleted the new driver, take out the new card and put the old one back in to get the system back to working order. No luck. I still had the jerky graphics. Now I have the new card back in, but the jerkiness is still there.

Any advice?

Mike

Edited by mikem1956, 08 August 2005 - 07:44 PM.

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Hi,

Try this and remove all the old video drivers then reinstall the drivers that came with the card. Sometimes rements of old video drivers don't completely remove and cause such problems

Hope it helps

Rick

[Doby]

Hi,

Try this and remove all the old video drivers then reinstall the drivers that came with the card. Sometimes rements of old video drivers don't completely remove and cause such problems

Hope it helps

Rick

[mikem1956]

Thanks. I had just heard of Drive Clean, so I tried it. Still no luck. Is it possible that this is not a graphics issue?

[Doby]

Yea it could be the power supply, but I just read minimun system requierments for the card and its states a minimum of a 250w psu witch I assume your dell has.

I really thought it would be a driver issue especially after you tried the old card and it still had the jerky graghics.

Try taking out the new ram and disconnecting the additional hdd, if the problem clears up then the psu may not have enough power to supply all the new components.

Rick

[mikem1956]

Okay, I'll try that tomorrow. How would a weak power supply create those effects?

[warriorscot]

Its not supplying enough nenergy to allow the components to run properly, its like when you dont have any energy your brain starts to turn to mush.

[mikem1956]

I disconnected the new hard drive. No change in the erractic nature of the mouse. I didn't take out the new memory since it had in been in for a couple of weeks with no problems. The problems started after adding the new graphics card and the additional hard drive.

So what now?

I was checking the Pinball game again. The ball will freeze for about a second, then continue its course. This is similar to what the mouse does.

[warriorscot]

I would take out the ram if the gfx card is still in the machine.

[Doby]

Yes take out the ram just to see if it makes any differance maybe the psu is getting weak.

Also run a full virus scan and scan for spyware with adaware.
After you do both of these get all the latest MS critical updates, maybe one of these will help or at least it won't hurt.

If none of this works I would then install the original video card then run drivercleaner and reinstall the original drivers for the old card. By doing this you may get the computer back to it original state when it last worked good then install one component and thier drivers if any, one at a time. I still think its a driver or power problem but lets see if the machine is clean first

Rick

[mikem1956]

Ok, I'll put the computer back in its original state and see what happens. Then I'll go from there. I'll be out of town for awhile, but I'll let you know what I find.

[mikem1956]

Ok, I have installed all the hardware as it was orginally. I am still getting the same weird effects. I agree that my power supply could be weak, but why is it still doing the weird things when I put everything back? Is there a way to test a power supply? Are Dell power supplies unique, or can I get any power supply locally? Any other ideas?

[Doby]

I am not at all sure it is the psu, I suggested it because I know Dell puts just enough of a psu in there systems to power the orginal components and when you mentioned all the upgrades I figuard that was it but now that you have taken them out I ain't sure.

I canot recommend a psu without actually seeing the Dell case and power supply, this is because of the connectors to the motherboard and the way the psu mounts

There use to be a guide at extreme overclockers.com that explained how to test psu's but I just checked and it ain't there anymore but you can read theartical they have there now to get a better understanding on psu's

I could explain how to check for a weak psu but that would requirer a digital volt meter and that the computer be under full load such as when running prime95 ( a free program) and I am uncertain if this situation warrents that.

Instead now that the computer has all the original components I would first reformat and reinstall the OS first to clean up the changes made before you spend money on things such as a psu or a volt meter that you may not need.



The only other thing I can think of is to reinstall the mouse drivers if you have not already done so.

Let me know how you want to proceed

Rick

[mikem1956]

Ok, I'm willing to redo the drive. Is reformating necessary? If so, you'll need to step me through how to do this so that I don't lose all my data. I have a CD from Microsoft for XP SP2. Is that all I need? I'll look at the info on Overclocker.com also.

[Doby]

Heres a artical direct from dell on how to reinstall the OS.

I did not review the artical so be carefull you do not lose your data.

Its late i will check in tomarrow

rick

[Keyne]

I have the same exact PC as mike, save that i have a lone 80gig HD... I upgraded the memory to 768, and just purchased a Radeon 9800pro and im wondering if i might have power issues with that.

Any advice?