No display after installing graphics drivers

[czhe]

Hi all,

My friend has the following system:

CPU: Pentium 4 1.8GHz Socket 478
Mobo: some model by VIA
PSU: generic 300W
RAM: generic 1GB DDR

He just purchased an AGP Sapphire HD 3650 and I was helping him install it.

Weirdest thing: after installing the card the first time, windows boots up no problem and as expected the resolution is all whacked.

After we install the drivers supplied by the CD (we also later tried drivers from Sapphire's site but no avail), we get as far as the end of 'loading windows' animation. As soon as we pass that, the screen just stays black. Windows actually successfully loads as I can shut it down using the keyboard. Figured it has to be a driver issue.

I have no idea, however, what to do from this point. We can get into safe mode and uninstall the driver and this allows us to boot into windows normally.

I understand the PSU is lower than the rated wattage for the card, which is 400W I believe. But since we got as far as seeing a display, I suspect the PSU is not the main issue at the moment.

Any one have any tips or advice?

Thanks!

Edit: I should also add that because my friend doesn't have a DVI cable, we're using a DVI-to-VGA dongle.

 

[jitpublisher]

Did you uninstall all the old drivers first before installing the new ones?
The proper procedure is:
Uninstall all current GPU drivers using add/remove programs.
Shut down, reboot, let windows reload the standard VGA drivers.
Shut down, take old card out, put new card in, boot.
Install new drivers.

 

[czhe]

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Yes, we did uninstall the old drivers. It was an old Geforce2 MX-400 card so it was using the plug-and-play drivers supplied by Windows XP. I uninstalled it through device manager. However, when it asked us to reboot I just shut down the computer and installed the new card. I assumed that was OK since the system booted up using standard VGA drivers.

I guess will try to reboot first next time before I install the new card to see if it helps...