New graphics card, startup freezes

[Dave-ros]

Well, I bit the bullet and got a 7900GS (only 135 quid, probably just over $200) -- but I've had no end of trouble since installing it today. First of all, is there any quick and easy way to remove a PCI-E card without having to wiggle it all around? Secondly, the card keeps freezing my computer just after it boots into Windows -- I thought at first this was just because I needed to get a decent power supply and plug the back of the card in so the fan would actually work :o, but when I did that, the damn thing STILL kept freezing just after arriving in Windows!

Although one glorious time it worked properly, and I was able to try out Prey and other games in amazing hi-res quality, with amazing frame rates... so I certainly made the right choice upgrading from my X1300 :mryuck:. However, if the new card doesn't work consistently, I can't really use it for anything, can I? If it makes any sense, when it stopped working again, I'd accidentally left it unplugged (while doing some other work inside the casing), so possibly it was still a little overheated when I plugged it back in and restarted? I've left it for nearly an hour now, so maybe it's cooled down enough that the onboard fan/heatsink will be enough to keep it cool? (Didn't get any messages saying it was overheating, funnily enough -- and yes, during the One Glorious Working Session I made sure to turn those on!)

Or, is it something else in my system -- I'll try unplugging CD drives etc. and see if that helps. I'm also gonna try Safe Mode to see if there's something else causing this -- since my computer was freezing before (while using Radeon Omega drivers, and whenever I tried to play an XVID-codec AVI -- WTF?!), maybe there's another issue... any ideas?

Specs available on request, if it's not some really stupid and simple thing that I've missed -- and yes, I made sure everything was plugged in ;) It's just weird, i.e. if it worked once, why won't it work again?

[ZaphodB]

sounds like a chip somewhere is dieing, either on your mainbaord or in your cpu. pray for mainboard. Do you have another unit you can try said vid cards on? if it works on them, then the mainboard or cpu is probably toast. I say this because I had a machine that would run for about 20-30 min when started from being off completely before it would lock up. it ended up being the mainboard chipset had "partially" fried. when it warmed up, the machine locked.

[Dave-ros]

Got to type quick, only got 3 minutes left at Internet cafe :o

I certainly hope it's NOT the motherboard or CPU, seeing as both are new as of July! If either of them's had it already, I'm really screwed :(

Gonna try it out again now it's had some time to cool down and think about what it really wants to do... will post tomorrow if there's any improvement!

[GoodAndyBadPizza]

I bought that XFS 7900GS from new egg. Got all the stuff the other day. Going to try put it all together today. Waiting on a winxp pro copy not got yet from ebay seller. Should'a been here yesterday. Retail box. I'm a bit worried about that. Need it to set it up, so in mean time will set system up & see if all works in set up etc.

Will let you know how my card does when get to that point.

What brand did you buy? Same one I got off newegg or a different one?

I was interested in seeing this Topic, since is card I'm fixing to use.

Good luck.

[GoodAndyBadPizza]

Can I use that Vista trial as an only os for time being?

[Phayzon]

Can I use that Vista trial as an only os for time being?

I believe so.

[Mblackwell]

The card could be bad, or you could have to go into your CMOS and set everything to defaults and then begin messing with things. I had a bunch of problems with my own computer and eventually discovered it was a voltage setting problem.

[Mudsling3]

Since you upgrading from Ati to nvidia, make sure you uproot Ati driver completely.

[Duoae]

Yeah Dave. Did it crash when you had no drivers installed except for the standard windows VGA ones?

[Dave-ros]

Right, here's the state of play: at the moment I can start up my PC and play games (though I think I'll have to reinstall Prey as I tried playing it with all hardware acceleration turned off and it reduced itself to default settings, and now won't load saved games!), and 3D works fine (I got a good mark in 3DMark03), but the moment I try to do any Windows-related things, like go to the graphics card option screen, or open My Computer, or anything like that, it freezes up! I can watch AVI movies fine (haven't tried DVD yet), and many programs work okay, and I can view drives as normal, and I can even go to eventvwr, msconfig and services.msc (haven't seen anything wrong in those areas, except maybe something about the Windows Browser service stopping), so it's just those specific things that seem to go horribly wrong. Any ideas, anyone? Could it be some really stupid BIOS setting? I did reset everything last night (largely by accident), but it's not helping.

I wonder, however, if it could be related to the fact that when I first installed the card, I had to pull out my TV card and move my network card to a lower PCI slot, without first uninstalling either? I've removed the software and (hopefully) drivers for both now, but I suppose there could be something lingering. And yes, I'm pretty sure it happened at least once before I installed the drivers (which I had to do in Safe Mode, which at least works perfectly), but that was before I found out about getting a new PSU so I could plug the card in. (Hope I haven't already damaged it by running it without sufficient power!)

I'm also fairly certain it's (now) not a temperature issue -- I did find out my processor was getting hot, and reseated the heat sink (which probably got dislodged when I was turning my computer over trying to find a good angle to install the new PSU :p), but now it's running fine, and when previously I was actually able to get into the nVidia options screen, it said the thing was at about 45 degrees (Celsius), which isn't anywhere near a problem, surely? (Since the "slowdown" threshold value is 130 degrees!!!)

Should I try a repair install of Windows? Or is there some really convenient way of removing wayward drivers that actually works? Driver Cleaner, for example? Damn, left my USB drive at home... (I'm still going to Internet cafés for my Net fix, if you can't tell -- hoping to sort out our own connection soon!)

I really don't want to have to take this new card back -- since the shop is in Cricklewood and closes at 6pm, I'd have to take time off work to visit it! I will however phone them tomorrow for guidance... possibly a strange batch of 7900GS-es which run fine in the highest-spec 3D games but struggle with Windows?!?

P.S. Can't remember the specific brand, sorry!
P.P.S. Will also try to get hold of ATi driver-nuking software, any suggestions?

[ZaphodB]

hang on, there's a link I got marked

Here it is:
http://www.drivercleaner.net/

Hope it helps

[Dave-ros]

Thanks Zaphod -- will try it out (had to rush home for my USB drive), and let you guys know... but is there some specific Windows service, something that gets fired up every time you try to open a driver-related program (including right-clicking on the speaker icon in the system tray and selecting "Adjust Audio Properties"), that could be corrupt? It just seems weird that heavy 3D games work fine, but straightforward PC maintenance doesn't... but hopefully, please God, it's just a driver issue and Driver Cleaner will make it all better :)

P.S. Just so I don't wonder, is there such a thing as a PCI-E motherboard that won't work with a 7900GS (leaving aside actually broken motherboards) because of voltages or whatever? Should I have saved my money and gone with a 7600?

[ZaphodB]

Hope it fixes the problem, fingers crossed.

[NutWrench]

I wonder, however, if it could be related to the fact that when I first installed the card, I had to pull out my TV card and move my network card to a lower PCI slot, without first uninstalling either?

Yes. Try removing this hardware from your Device Manager and letting Windows re-detect them. (TV card, network card, graphics card). Uninstall all three devices in Safe Mode and then reboot.

[Dave-ros]

I seem to have cracked it, somehow -- it may be a combination of Driver Cleaner, tweaking the BIOS (which I'm now genuinely afraid to touch again :o) and disabling a Windows service called (let me check my mobile phone's reminder section) WLTRYSVC, which doesn't seem to do anything but was the only thing throwing up red crosses in Event Viewer. So anyway, now my uber-l33t machine works fine (except the movies in Painkiller are stuttering, just like on my old machine when I installed an FX5200) -- thanks for all your help, guys! Will let you know if it continues to work... or if it doesn't ;)

NutWrench, you have a rival in ZaphodB for the title of Most Helpful Hax0r :p

[ZaphodB]

Actually I think it was NutWrench who originally posted that link in one of the Prey forums. So he still gets credit in my book. I'm just sharing the knowledge he gave us. :) But I do appreciate the compliment :D

[Jiminator]

looks like problems solved. if you want to poke around more you can try booting up in safe mode, the drivers are usually easier to uninstall from there.

[Dave-ros]

Minor update: that Windows service I mentioned before is tied up with Belkin drivers, so it looks like at least part of my headache came from moving the network card into a different slot. Having said that, the fact that I was getting occasional freezes before suggests my previous attempts to upgrade the card's drivers (which failed miserably) may have started this whole thing off... anyway, thanks again, guys! (As you can tell, still no problems, even the cutscenes in Painkiller have cleared up!)

[Dave-ros]

As a postscript to the thread, I found out last night exactly why my new graphics card had been freezing my computer (or at least the main reason): some kind of power-saving setting for the processor in the BIOS, called C1E or something similar. Anyone know anything about this, and whether it's notorious for causing this kind of thing?

[ZaphodB]

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/pentium4-600/index.x?pg=2

Here's some info on C1E.