Problem installing 7900GT (twice)

[hewhoroams]

Ok here's my scenario.

I have a MSI K8N Neo4-F. Everything runs perfect with my 6800GT installed.

I buy a 7900gt(EvGA, superclocked). It posts, etc etc, and never gets into Windows. I do a hot restart, and it says windows didnt shut down properly, blah blah blah. Safe mode does the same thing, cannot get into even an ultimate boot disk windows environment.
I call NewEgg, they RMA me, I buy a different card, XFX. I put it and the same thing happens. I just finished updating all my BIOS levels (was down by one, and it was nothing serious) and I cannot figure out what the hell is going on.

Is it possible I got 2 bad cards? Is my luck that bad? Is it a mother board incompatibility? Nothing else really jumps out at me about the sitution.

Again I can get through Post just fine, just nothing VGA wise ever goes through.

 

[mfurse]

Could be the power supply - what rating are your 12V rails? The 7800 uses more power than the 6800, especially a slightly overclocked version. I was running a 400W PSU with particularly strong 12V rails, and the card is rock stable at stock, but I did suffer from reboots when overclocking to 450/1100 and above - now its strong with a new 600W Seasonic 😀

Might be worth ripping the nvidia drivers out as well and reinstalling from scratch...fixes things 9 times out of 10!

Matt

 

[mfh6375]

I'm not sure if we have the exact same problem. I get nothing on my screen at all. Everything sounds normal, though. It sounds like everything boots up just fine. I just can't see anything. I can't go to bios, safe mode, etc. Because I can't see. Monitor power light blinks as if in standby. And the fan on the card runs. It just seems like there is no signal being sent to monitor.

I doubt mine is a power issue. My psu is only 460w, but it has 34 amps on the 12v. That should be plenty. This pc is a Dell Gen 4 XPS. I've heard people on the Dell forums say they are running 7800 and x1900 cards in the same XPS model that I have. Both of those need more power than the 7900 cards.

 

[swifty_morgan]

minimum power supply required by man.

A 350W PCI Express compliant system power supply (with 12V current rating of 20A or more)

 

[hewhoroams]

I did manage to get mine working... which makes me feel bad about returning the first card... oh well.

Still not entirely sure what the problem was since I did all the fixes I could think of remotely while at work, and than tried it when I got home.

But thanks for the input!

 

[mfh6375]

What were the fixes that you did? Just curious, since my replacement card (eVGA 7900 GTX) should be here today. I hope I don't have the same problem. But, if I do I'll know it's not the cards.

 

[hewhoroams]

I did an update on the BIOS (twice just make sure it was ok)

I did a complete removal of all current graphics drivers.

I switched out the 12v Power cable for the card

I reseated it at least 15 times.
I mentally willed it to work (this was key)

 

[mfh6375]

Yep, mine was definitely a bad card. I don't see any other explanation. My new card, an eVGA 7900 GTX, arrived today. It installed flawlessly. I did absolutely nothing different. I only had to move my sound card to another slot. Otherwise the big cooler on the GTX would have been just under it. I thought more breathing room was better.

So far, the only games I have tried with the new card are FEAR and COD2. My performance in those two games has literally more than doubled. I'm very happy with this card so far.