New video card just giving black screen.

[randyannie]

Hi I have an ASUS motherboard with an Nvidia nForce chipset onboard. I've been using the display port to put my monitor on for about a year and all went well, then I purchased a video card: ATI Radeon 9200 128mb and installed it into the agp port, but so far all I've gotten is black screen. It's as if WinXP doesn't even want to notice it. It's almost as if I got a dud - a bad card if you will.

Does anyone know where I went wrong? I can take the monitor plug, while my pc is running, and switch from onboard (good) to ATI card (black screen) but that's about it.

Thanks for your input, Randy

[Afterburner]

Have you made the neccesary changes in the MB bios?

[bugster]

Moved to Computer Forum

[Cobra]

As Afterburner has suggested, you will need to set your motherboard BIOS to send video to the AGP port instead of the onboard graphics.

Cobra

[randyannie]

Just for the fun of it - if I go into the BIOS and tell my motherboard to bypass the onboard graphics, will it immediately kill the onboard vga connection (e.g. will screen go black, or will the OS load some temporary driver) and will it do the same for the agp monitor connection on the new graphics adapter - so I could plug it right up and see the screen so that I could install the software that came with the card. Thanks for your posts.

Randy

PS: I went into my BIOS, but I must admit that I'm not sure which setting to change, is it under the Advanced tab etc.? I'm going to reboot and try again, but any general directions would be great.

[thecoalman]

Providing windows recognizes the card (which it should if you have the bios setting right) windows will load a temporary driver for the ATI. Don't stare at the screen too long it will give you a headache, I think the default monitor setting is 65 hertz. Load in your drivers as directed by the manufacturer.

Disabling the onboard graphics may be all you need to do....but that's a guess.

[ViRaL1]

Some (not all) boards will automatically disable the onboard video if it recognizes a video card installed in a slot. If you DO need to change the settings to disable your onboard video it's probably listed under something like 'Integrated Peripherals.'

[randyannie]

Ok. I did find the setting in the BIOS and changed it to AGP video card, but even though I did that, still no luck in getting the card to be recognized. Under device manager, display adapter only shows the onboard graphics driver - but it has been disabled at least. I'll try slicking the hard drive one more time and if the card still won't produce, I think I'll call it dead. Who knows.

Thanks, Randy

PS: even with new video card out of my machine, I'm still getting slow-mo video. Is that because the onboard graphics driver is disabled?

[ViRaL1]

That could be. Try reinserting the card in the AGP slot and making sure that it's seated properly. If you have the case off with the 9200 installed, can you tell if the fan on the card is spinning? Is there a secondary power connector on the card?

[randyannie]

Thanks everyone I got it installed with your help. I am having some grainy graphics problems though, which include, odd/bright colors here and there and fine grainyness around the edges - maybe I just need some strong coffee and a Marlboro Menthol. :P

I feel like I'm almost home, but something still needs some tweaking.

Best, Randy

[thecoalman]

Now you need to go adjust the display settings... right click on the desktop and select properties. Go to the settings tab, adjust your display resolution to your preffered size, change the color quality to highest-32bit. Click the advanced tab and find the monitor tab or where you can adjust the monitor refresh rate. I use 85 hertz, turning this up too high can decrease the life span of your monitor and/or smoke it. But you should be safe with 85 hertz, most likely it won't list higher than it's capable of. Those are the most basic settings, there's others look around.

You did install the ATI drivers right?

[SIRCOOKS]

go to the product website, for some recent updates to the software, that may help...