New card/driver issues

R

rborchers7

New Member
Hello, I am new on this forum, and I appreciate any help I can get with this problem :)

I recently bought a new graphics card, and after a lot of trouble (I am new at this whole hardware self-installation thing), I finally get my computer to boot up. The card automatically installs a standard VGA driver, which is useful, but I need a good functioning driver to get the graphics I bought the card for. That said, I have tried the NVIDIA website with the newest driver and the CD-ROM that came with the card. Both drivers cause my computer to not boot properly, which I follow by manually restarting and booting in safe mode to uninstall the driver.

A funny side note, I got my bf to look at it yesterday to see if he could get it to work, and it booted first time completely fine. The driver was fully installed and everything. A couple of blue screens and reboots later, I'm playing WoW. Amazing graphics. This morning, I boot my computer, and it starts beeping at me, no video output. Awesome. I pull out some extra ram I recently replaced but kept in the extra slots, and it boots right up, but this time my video driver is gone. Been working on it for the last two hours, but so far I'm just repeating my mistakes of yesterday.

My specs are:
Dell Inspiron 531s
Windows Vista 32-bit, SP1
NVIDIA 8400 GS
AMD Athlon 64 X3 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2.01 GHz
Dell Motherboard
2.00 GB RAM

Any other info you need, just let me know.
 
Sounds kinda like your getting file corruption from your memory instead of the card giving you a problem. Have you tried just installing the old memory and see if it boots and runs ok?

Or you say it boots with just the new memory. Try reinstalling the Video driver with just the new memory.
 
The new memory boots and runs fine. It was after I installed the new graphics card that all this booting/driver issue came up.

I did try to install the driver again after I took the old ram out, still no luck. Same failure to boot up after install/restart.

Tried an older version of the driver, same thing.

Anyone else encounter this problem? It seems to be pretty common on computer forums, but I haven't come across a successful solution yet.
 
Even if its the 8400gs in your sig.

It could be this.

(250 Watt DC Power Supply) Not to good!

You got another computer you could test the card on?
 
no i don't. :(


what does that mean? the install didn't mention anything about a power supply, was I supposed to plug it in somewhere?

---------------------------

Sorry, you mean that my computer comes with a 250W psu, which isn't enough for the card. Makes sense. Two questions. First: could I have damaged the card last night? I ran it for quite a while without incident. Two: how do I solve the problem? How do you replace the PSU?
 
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8400GS

Requirements
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Minimum of a 350 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 18 Amp Amps.)

Thats one of those slim line cases. You could Email Dell or call and see if a standard ATX Power Supply will fit.

Dont think you could have done anything to the card. Dont really know if its the card or P/S, but the P/S is pretty much on the small side power wise.
 
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Just re-read the booklet, says 400W min. How do I go about replacing the power supply? My tower is slim, do you know any website that would tell me compatible power supplies for my dell?
 
Alrighty. It fixed itself randomly again. But we think we know why.

Both times it fixed itself was after it was completely unplugged, more than 5 minutes. This was mentioned as a possible fix on another forum, and it seems it's a problem with the power supply capacitator.

I may just unplug my computer for a few minutes instead of going through the hassle of finding a slim psu.
 
Yeah its probable getting itself loaded up and and shutting down. If you unplug it and push the Power button a few times it will discharge the P/S. But it will keep happening. Its like running a car with the pedel to the floor all the time, its not going to last long.;)
 
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