Video card Problem Compaq help

[megalo]

You can find the system specs of the pc here, http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&dest_page=product&dlc=en&product=93212&docname=c00009492.

What I was trying to do was install a new graphics card in the agp slot. The video card I was trying to install was a PNY 6600. But It didn't work.

I first tried to uninstall the vanta graphics card in the add/remove programs, but It wasn't displayed. So I went into the device manager and tried to uninstall it that way and it worked and I had to restart the pc. (note there is another issue that shows itself when i shut down the pc that is discussed in another thread). Yet when the pc restarts a windows message says a new device was found and it automatically installs the drivers for the vanta card like they are in its database. After this happened, i just shut down the pc and proceeded to remove the vanta card and install the pny geforce 6600. I made sure the card had power through the molex power cable and i put the case back together and proceeded to turn it on. But an error message was shown before i could even get into bios and it told me to check the video card by removing it from the pc to see if the problem persists. Which I did and guess what.... the problem persisted. So now I reinstalled the vanta card and everything is working again.

Could it have something to do with the agp slot only being x4, or could molex power cables go bad and thus it wouldn't get any power (noted by the fact that the fan wasn't spinning) or it may have to do something with the problem noted above in parenthesis and in another thread.

Other than those, I have no idea why it didn't work.

 

[Cybie1111]

If you still have that old 235 watt power supply, that could be your main problem.

 

[xdaxxchampxx]

go into your bios make sure that its set for agp as main display adapter and set the ram to what your new card is and i think you will need a new power supply but you can give it a try if not then get ahold of a nice 350w+ power supply and that should do the trick

 

[Tory]

The card probably isn't powering up because it's not getting enough voltage. Bust out a digital multimeter and see what's going on. Yellow is 12V and that's what you're mainly concerned about.

 

[megalo]

go into your bios make sure that its set for agp as main display adapter and set the ram to what your new card is and i think you will need a new power supply but you can give it a try if not then get ahold of a nice 350w+ power supply and that should do the trick

I don't understand "set the ram to what your new card is," is this the agp aperture size?

 

[DRDNA]

in Bios there is a spot to assign the AGP card some system memory as dedicated to the video card incase the video card needs any....

 

[DRDNA]

ACtually I dont think your compaq mobo will support 8X AGP graphic cards !!! If I am not mistaken your compaq mobo will only go as high as a 4X AGP graphic card ..The card you are trying to install is again if I am not mistaken a 8X agp card so it would not work !!! Good luck

 

[DRDNA]

Yes Sir your specs report 4X AGP not 8X so I am pretty sure that is your problem !!!

 

[DR.Death]

no it is not they are revers compatable it only requires a agp 2.0 slot(4x agp slot) so it will work but i think the psu is the problem or the card its self

 

[DRDNA]

Well I am getting mixed reports on the PNY 6600 ... here it says its a 8X agp card and nothing about backwards compatable to 4X AGP >> http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=10437525/

But here its says just like what DR.Death said >>>>> http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?sku=5881396&SourceID=k15506

I am also seeing that a 300 watt PSU is needed.

 

[Tory]

All 8X cards are 4X compatable by nature, so most places that list the specs take it as a given and don't bother to put that it works with 4X.

 

[DR.Death]

on the website it says that the card is compatable with agp 2.0 or higher . here go look for your selves http://www.pny.com/products/verto/mainstream/6600agp8x256.asp

 

[megalo]

I would like to note that I was a little worried about the ps, and when i checked it, it was said to be 250 watts.

 

[DR.Death]

ya i would to u should go and see if u can get a cheep brand name psu like i did i have a antec 450 w and i only spent 70$ can . here is a antec truepower 550w for only 90.00$ and antech psu's are good and this one is sli ready so if u ever want to for and upgrade u ahve a good psu to do it

 

[M. Mellough]

Megalo, in order for your system to be able to detect your 6600 you need to go into the bios setup and disable "integrated video", you'll find this in "integrated peripherals" or some similarly named section (I don't know which bios Compaq uses so the terms may vary). From within Windows you can only uninstall the drivers, and that won't disable the hardware. That's why it keeps showing up at boot. As long as the integrated video is not disabled the bios will be unable to "see" your VGA slot and detect a card in it.

Once this is done you need to enable the VGA slot (also in bios) and set the AGP aperture size. Just use the same value as the amount of ram you have on your vidcard. Unless you specify a huge amount this setting doesn't affect performance much but using a very large value sometimes results in poor graphics.