Gateway won't install new video card.

mattwood440

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I apologize if this has been answered before, I had a bit of trouble registering and I think I used to search function properly or not, but I digress.

My mom bought a Gateway GT5028 with an integrated gforce 6100. The previous owner had some trouble with the graphics, although I think it was more a software issue because it straightened out after a fresh install of XP MCE 2005 OEM. I still felt it would be a good idea to get a PCI-E 16x graphics card so I got a cheap one from newegg, a 7300 GS.

I can't get the pc to recognize this card. I tried 15 different ways like uninstalling the driver for the old one first, then putting the card in, having the driver installed and putting the card in, and even tried installing the driver from the cd or downloading the driver from nvidia and NOTHING. The bios is a phoenix award bios and I don't see a thing in there for disabling the integrated graphics. I tried the 7300 card in my emachine and it found it right away.

What gives?

Matt
 
Well, there is an option in the BIOS to disable the onboard.
But a quick Google search (gosh....using Google, now where have I seen that before?) brings a lot of complaints that people cannot get an add-in card to work correctly....seems this is a problem inherit to this particular Gateway model.
 

mattwood440

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Really? Before I respond, are you taking a swipe at me?
 

mattwood440

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Device manage sees nothing. The bios shows 1.18v to the pcie 16x slot so I don't think it's bad but who knows.

Under the bios there's an option for Init Display First: PCIEx, PCI Slot, Onboard. I have it set to PCIEx

Under that there's PCIEx Maximum TLP Payload Size; 4096 bytes

When I perused the owners manual it didn't say anything about a jumper. Another poster said there is a way to disable the onboard but failed to elaborate. He also said that there a lot of complaints about this model. My own research prior to posting up here uncovered a couple complaints with no details or reasons, as well as at least one dude who said he was running a 7300 gt in the PCIE for "years" (which then croaked and he couldn't get another one to work). SO that's why I'm here.
 
I doubt it's a driver issue.
Since it's not much effort, download and burn a copy of Ubuntu. Then boot from the CD (don't install it). Your BIOS boot order must have your CD/DVD device before the hard drive in the boot order. I have: 1. Floppy, 2. CD/DVD, 3. Hard Drive

You'll need to go into Ubuntu settings and locate the name of the graphics card to confirm but if your PCIe card is there then it's a software issue, not a hardware or BIOS issue.

You have the correct BIOS setting.

You should also either borrow another PCIe card or put your PCIe card in another computer.

A third option is to get another hard drive, remove your current Windows drive physically by removing both connectors and start (but not Activate) the Windows installation.

Question: When you say the card doesn't work, does it mean Windows shows nothing or that you can not eve see BIOS?

If you can see BIOS then it sounds like a Windows software issue. If you can NOT see BIOS (or anything upon bootup) then it's either:
a) motherboard hardware issue
b) BIOS setting
c) defective graphics card
 

hundredislandsboy

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Here's a wild guess: Maybe the motherboard "knows" where the monitor is plugged into and wants to use that port?

You did plug the monitor to the 7300 GS, booted up?

I don't understand because usually if the card is bad hardware and it's in the right slot, there would be warning beeps and the system won't post. Is the fan spinning on the card?
 

mattwood440

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I doubt it's a driver issue.
Since it's not much effort, download and burn a copy of Ubuntu. Then boot from the CD (don't install it). Your BIOS boot order must have your CD/DVD device before the hard drive in the boot order. I have: 1. Floppy, 2. CD/DVD, 3. Hard Drive

You'll need to go into Ubuntu settings and locate the name of the graphics card to confirm but if your PCIe card is there then it's a software issue, not a hardware or BIOS issue.

I will check that out

You should also either borrow another PCIe card or put your PCIe card in another computer.

I did. In the first post I said it works great in my emachine. It was found automatically too. Unfortunately the card from my emachine won't physically fit in the gateway so I can't try it the other way around.

Question: When you say the card doesn't work, does it mean Windows shows nothing or that you can not eve see BIOS?

If you can see BIOS then it sounds like a Windows software issue. If you can NOT see BIOS (or anything upon bootup) then it's either:
a) motherboard hardware issue
b) BIOS setting
c) defective graphics card

You lost me there. I can use the onboard graphics of the gateway machine and I'm using that machine right now. But I think that the onboard graphics are starting to go. So I guess the answer is I can enter the BIOS just fine. The card works fine in my emachine. Unlike when I install it in the emachine, when I put it in the gateway, it doesn't auto detect, or show up in device manager, or anything despite several tries. It's as if I put nothing in there.
 

mattwood440

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That was the first thing I tried and was baffled by the blank screen. There is no fan on the card and it works fine in my emachine.
 

mattwood440

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More bad news. The onboard graphics I think are going. The visualization screen for windows media player looks bad (lines through it) and trying to open media center looks illegible. On the other hand movies like streaming youtube video and saved mpegs look alright.
 

mattwood440

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Absolutely not. I was reformatting it using an OEM MCE 2005 disk with the original key on the case for my mom who bought it from a coworker for fairly cheap. I just wanted her to have a nice PC without all the gateway crap. I've done it dozens of times and have installed aftermarket graphics cards in 3 other PCs with total success.

Now for an update. The onboard graphics went out last night, kinda. I could view the bios screen and the windows logo, then it would go blank at the welcome screen except for a pencil thin line at the top. I don't know why, but I thought it might be software related. I was using XP MCE with the OEM key, because that's what it was supposed to be. So I went and reformated again with XP Home and a genuine key that I had bought a few years ago, and now the onboard card is working again, better than ever. Even watching the Windows Media Player visualization on full screen with all the appearance settings turned up it looks fine. What the hell. How can it reject MCE when it was an MCE PC to start, and how is that possible anyway? I'll try installing the pci-e card again tomorrow. I wish I had a regular pci video card to use.
 

hundredislandsboy

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When you reformat, don't choose the "quick" option and do a full format. If you have surface errors on the hard disk, regular format will find them and block them out.

When you choose to run a regular format on a volume, files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. The scan for bad sectors is responsible for the majority of the time that it takes to format a volume.

If you choose the Quick format option, format removes files from the partition, but does not scan the disk for bad sectors. Only use this option if your hard disk has been previously formatted and you are sure that your hard disk is not damaged.

If you installed Windows XP on a partition that was formatted by using the Quick format option, you can also check your disk by using the chkdsk /r command after the installation of Windows XP is completed.
 

mattwood440

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Well I guess I'm done with this thing for now. I want to thank everyone for their help. I always do the full reformat thing. So it's seems the onboard graphics are working fine now which is odd. It doesn't like rendering 3D for whatever reason, but for my mom's purposes it should be fine. Thanks again.

Matt
 
G

Guest

Guest
It's a Gateway GT5028 onboard Geforce 6100 hardware/motherboard/bios problem... I have same issue. Many others also. The Onboard Geforce 6100 "RED" went bad... so I purchased a PCIe Geforce 7200... install it in the correct slot... set the bois to INIT Display PCIe... power restart... it worked once.... then a 2nd time, then back twice again to confusing which graphic device to init. When I rebooted with out power cycle the desktop reverted back to the Geforce 6100... even thourgh the bios was still saved to Init Display PCIe... I cycled this issue a few times... reboot without power cycle,,, reboot with power cycle... sometimes it INIT the Geforce 7200 in the PCIe slot other times it reverted back to the onboard Geforce 6100...

I think it is a hardware bios design flaw, since it's a older Gateway system, it's not ever going to get fixed. the latest bios update is 2006...

Looks like a few folks have been seeing this same issue... so we are all screwed...
replace the desktop ... take the lost... and never again buy a Gateway system...

Everybody... motherboard vendors.... Desktop Mfg's... bios vendors... they walk away from products 6 month out... New product cycles are within a year on every thing Computers, cell phones, printers... everything electronic ... support ends within the first year... It's a purchase and through away global marketplace...

 
It's a Gateway GT5028 onboard Geforce 6100 hardware/motherboard/bios problem... I have same issue. Many others also. The Onboard Geforce 6100 "RED" went bad... so I purchased a PCIe Geforce 7200... install it in the correct slot... set the bois to INIT Display PCIe... power restart... it worked once.... then a 2nd time, then back twice again to confusing which graphic device to init. When I rebooted with out power cycle the desktop reverted back to the Geforce 6100... even thourgh the bios was still saved to Init Display PCIe... I cycled this issue a few times... reboot without power cycle,,, reboot with power cycle... sometimes it INIT the Geforce 7200 in the PCIe slot other times it reverted back to the onboard Geforce 6100...

I think it is a hardware bios design flaw, since it's a older Gateway system, it's not ever going to get fixed. the latest bios update is 2006...

Looks like a few folks have been seeing this same issue... so we are all screwed...
replace the desktop ... take the lost... and never again buy a Gateway system...

Everybody... motherboard vendors.... Desktop Mfg's... bios vendors... they walk away from products 6 month out... New product cycles are within a year on every thing Computers, cell phones, printers... everything electronic ... support ends within the first year... It's a purchase and through away global marketplace...
Why reply to a six month old thread?
 

jennyh

Splendid
They are all pretty crooked tbh. We all bought a dell/hp whatever to start with, but with a bit of luck we all eventually build our own instead. That is when you realise how crap most prebuilt pc's are.