Smaug

I just bought this card (GF 7600GT, OEM), without software. I downloaded the software and tried the set up---all this with my old card still in place. Set up wouldn't complete because I got a message that said something like "Setup cannot complete as there is not any compatible hardware." So, I installed the new card, and turned on my pc. The only thing now that I get on the screen is "Monitor is in powersave mode. Use PC to initialize" or something like that. So it seems obvious that my card isn't being recognized. I tried turning the comp off and on a couple of times, all with the same result. I have no idea what I need to do to get the new card up and running--so I put the old one back in so that I could post here. How do I get this new card to work before the drivers are available? Or, how can the drivers be available when I need them to get this working?

reflux

You're getting the drivers from here yeah?

ForceWare Release 163

(providing you have XP, and not Vista).

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Smaug

Yes, I actually got them from the nvidia site.

WrathOfSocrus

All the drivers in the world wont help if you can't get the video card to show a POST screen. Drivers aren't the issue. If the video card was functioning properly It would boot into windows with bare minimum VGA drivers . . . Just like it does when you boot up a new install of windows provided you didn't slip-stream your drivers in.

Now I am assuming the NEW video card is of the same graphics aperture as the old card (both AGP or PCI-E). If the old graphics was regular PCI then you may need to go into BIOS and make sure the AGP/PCI-E slot is initialized first. Make sure the video card is properly seated (if it has a lock, unlock it - insert card - then be certain to lock it). Also make sure you are using the #1 monitor port (I have tried blindly plugging into a video card and picked the wrong output on more than one occasion).

Because you have an OEM video card, I would make certain the heatsink is properly seated and there aren't any bent pins, blown or missing capacitors or anything of the sort.

The only other thing I can possibly think is the new video card draws too much power and your power supply can't dish it out, leaving you with a blank screen.

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$SOLID$ Necro

First thing you need to do is to remove old NVIDIA drivers completely

TweakGuides.com - Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide

In case your old card was ATI.

TweakGuides.com - ATI Catalyst Tweak Guide

Then run Driver Cleaner or similar to remove any old registry bits left behind.

Here is one called Driver Sweeper.

Guru3D - Driver Sweeper (Setup) download from Guru3D.com

Make sure you get the driver for the right OS too (Vista or XP)

I had similar problems with getting one of the newer drivers to recognise my 6800 Ultra's, even though ti was on the supported list, and went with an older version, try going back one or two versions.
download from Guru3D.com



This is what I used, the 93.71..but there may be newer ones that work better, but this should at least allow you to get up and running!

ForceWare 93.71 (x86) WHQL download from Guru3D.com

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Smaug

Thanks for all the help. Embarassingly, I didn't know there was a power connector on the card. Once I found that---voila--it works. Now I didn't go in and remove the old ATI drivers prior to installing the new ones, so I'll still need to do that. So, can I use Driver Cleaner Pro and remove all of the ATI references at this point, or will I need to remove all graphics drivers and start over with the nvidia drivers?