Furyguy

Greetings. I recently installed an eVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra in my system. Things were running very smoothly for the past few days.

Tonight when I got home I turned on my computer (without turning the monitor on) and went to get a bite to eat. I came back about ten minutes later and turned the screen on. The display was black and blank. I let it sit there for a few minutes before trying every keyboard combo I could think of to get some sort of response. Ctrl Alt Del, Alt F4, Alt Tab, Windows Key, nothing could get any reaction up on the screen. So out of desperation I hit the hard reset button on my case.

Now my computer won't boot at all. It repeats the same beep sequence over and over again, a long-short-short combo, which I have read from a number of sources is a Display Adapter Problem signal for my BIOS (Award).

Nothing comes up on the screen regardless of how long I leave it turned on. The monitor sits in standby as if the computer is not powered on at all. Fans and hard drives spin up as usual.

I can't find any other info on this kind of problem at all. I wish I had another video card to confirm that this is actually the problem, but I do not. For now I've been operating on the assumption that the graphics card is the problem. Though I don't think it is physically broken. I took it out, looked it over thoroughly and was unable to find any sign of damage, and it was working perfectly until this restart which seems to have interrupted something. Perhaps I interrupted a driver update or something? Though that seems unlikely since the computer in question has been completely disconnected from the internet for over a week now.

Like I said it's been running fine until right now and suddenly it doesn't =(. Here is my rig:

Asus a8n32 SLI Deluxe
2 Gigabytes Corsair DDR RAM
AMD Athlon 64X2 4400+
Antec TruePower 2.0 550Watt (38A on 12V rail)
2 HDs, both Western Digital Caviar SATA

Sorry for the long-winded post. I hope that won't deter any possible responses but I get the feeling it probably will :P.

Doby

Try reseating the card but unfortunately if that don't work the card could have gone bad, the beep code indicates that the computer is getting no video signal

Furyguy

Thank you for the response. I tried that, the problem still occurs.

Also: The card requires two additional 6-pin PCI-E power cables, both of which are attached properly.

Also: Resetting CMOS did not fix the problem.

Can a card randomly die like that without improperly over-clocking, over-heating, receiving insufficient power or physically damaging it in any way? I mean a random restart is by no means an uncommon occurrence when it comes to Windows, I've seen my fair share of them in the past but never has it caused any significant problem for me.

Furyguy

OK new info in the case. I tried a new (verified working) video card in my machine, with the same results. POST is unable to detect any display adapter at all.

Soooo now I'm assuming the problem is in my motherboard. Any thoughts?

=(

HawMan

Have you got a stronger PSU you can test? The 8800 Series need at least a 700W+ Good quality PSU - And with yours being the 'Ultra' your looking at 700W minimum.

Could be a possibility that the PSU has slowly burned its self out and took the CPU or motherboard with it.

What was the other card you tried?

Furyguy

The other card was I believe a GeForce 7800 or something along those lines. It was in my room mate's rig and he let me borrow it just to test.

I think you are right about the power supply though. It is only 550W. I figured it would be fine since it has both power cables for the card and has more than enough power on the 12V line.

I'm gonna go buy a new PSU and Mobo and see how that works out.

700-800W range sounds good right?


Also before this happened I was having some random restart + occasional random shutdown problems that I thought I had cleared up with a reformat + thorough cleaning of all parts. Perhaps they were related?

HawMan

I would of Replaced the PSU when you were getting the random shut downs, as this is usually a sign of an under-powered System. Even the 7800 was probably too much for that PSU.

If you can try a low-end card that would be good. For a new PSU id recommend the OCZ GamerXtreme 700W.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Tpk=700w%2bpsu

Doby

I really doubt its the mobo because it is beeping, this is usually a good sign at least as far as the mobo is concerned, I agree with hawMan you should try a better psu first, her is some info.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/hard...selection.html

Furyguy

So the power supply could be causing the motherboard to not detect the videocard even if the motherboard is totally fine?

Doby

The short answer is yes thats possible but the psu is not causing the motherboard to not detect the video card but rather its not suppling enough power to the card it self or suppling enough power to the motherboard and its components to show video.

It is possible that the pcie slot on the motherboard is bad and this is not fixable thus the motherboard is bad.

Try cleaning the gold contacts of the video card with a pencil eraser and see what happens

Furyguy

Turns out it wasn't the power supply. Bought a new Antec 1000W, threw that in there, same ****.

I can't find anyone selling a top quality socket 939 board right now, so I guess for now there's nothing I can do.

Still thinking it's the mobo even though it's beeping.

Doby

Yes it does seem like its the board seeing as you tried a new psu and a known working video card.

Socket 939 maybe getting hard to find from a retailor but I am sure you can find one on ebay

Furyguy

OK so.... the new board fixed my old problem of not being able to pass POST. Thanks a lot to Doby and HawMan for helping me figure that out.

But noooowww I have the problem of not being able to boot from my old hard drive. I have a fresh drive in there which boots just fine, but I get a stop error during the OS load screen now. 0x0000007E. After playing with it for about an hour I'm fairly certain it's a problem with the display adapter drivers I have installed on that drive.

So naturally I assume if I could boot without loading the drivers I'd be able to uninstall them and then boot fine. But the problem is I can't boot into safe mode and I can't figure out any other way to load Windows without loading my drivers.

The problem with Safe Mode is that I initially tried using the Windows Install CD to fix my XP, so now every time I try to boot into Safe Mode I get the "Set Up cannot continue in Safe Mode. You're computer will now restart." and I can't do anything.

So in short, can't boot regular, can't boot safe mode, can't finish Windows install/upgrade attempt, can't cancel it either. =(

Furyguy

Oh also just to re-iterate since it was unclear, the other hard drive I have works fine, boots normally and everything is good.

It's just this one hard drive that I can't make work anymore.

Doby

Ok I am a bit confused, "you say you have a fresh drive in there" and it boots fine. Does this mean it boots windows?

If the old drive has a copy of windows on it that was installed on a different motherboard then you have to do a repair install of XP.

Please explain what you are trying to do, you only need one boot drive.

Or can't you install windows on either drive?

Furyguy

I'm sorry. Here's the situation.

Back when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer I bought a new Hard Drive thinking that my HD might be the problem. I installed Windows on the new and continued getting the same problem.

Now that I have a new motherboard in there, my old Hard Drive with all my files, installs, documents etc won't boot. But the new one that doesn't have anything but Windows on it boots just fine.

I feel like it's my display adapter drivers that are causing the old HD to not boot correctly. But since I can't boot into Safe Mode and can't boot regular mode there isn't any way I can uninstall or delete it.

So that's what I can asking, if there's any way I can get rid of them or turn them off without being able to boot into that Windows install.

I know I "only" need one drive with Windows installed but I'm trying to keep the old one and use the new one as storage.

There's no way I can transfer all my installed programs to the new HD and keep their settings, is there? For example old games that I have installed that I don't have the CD keys for anymore.

Doby

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Remove the new drive and perform a XP repair install on the old drive, all your data will be safe but you will have to install the mobo drivers and any add on cards drivers, also video card drivers. Then install MS updates again.

I believe both these drives are sata correct? If so connect the new drive and enter bios, there should be a setting that lets you boot from either drive

Furyguy

I've tried that a few times. I go through the Repair Install process to the point where it says something like "Setup has completed the installation. Your computer must now be restarted in order for setup to continue." So then it restarts my computer and tries to load up Windows and I just get the Stop error again during the loading screen.

Doby

You could run diagnostics on the drive from the manufactuer, they are downloadable for free and run from a bootable floppy or cd. Maybe the drive is bad, I know you don't want to here that and it don't help you with the games but at least you will know if its the drive or not.

I would also backup anything that important on that drive, other than programs of course

Doby

Oh yea and just in case I misundestood, you can acces the drive will in windows booted from the new drive, all you have to do is have both drives connected and choose witch one to boot from in bios.

You can then backup all your data but not programs,