Dell XPS 410 new graphics card issue

[gbelous]

I have had the system for a few years now and it has sat a while with a virus. Yesterday I redid the OS (windows xp) and installed 4 gb of memory up from the 2 it came with. All went fine. I also wanted to upgrade the graphics card and bought this one off dell...ATI Radeon HD 5450 1 GB Low Profile PCIe Graphics Card with Displayport.

This is where I ran into problems and I am not very computer savvy...I can do the basics, but when it comes to this stuff I'm very new.

The book said to uninstall the old GC driver so I did and to disable any onboard video (not sure where to find this, it didn't come up in the device manager). Then swap cards and install the new drivers.

I did the unload of the old GC drivers (it was a GeForce card 128, 7300, Low Encryption, MRMGA10), took out the old card, put the new one in (in the PCIe slot) and went to turn it on and nothing. Sometimes it would give me random error codes on startup, other times it would show a colorful snow screen that would scroll down the screen. I could hear the computer running like it was loading windows like normal, but there was just no picture.

No clue what to do next. I've read that I should reset the BIOS, no idea how to do that. I tried hitting F2 on the load screen, but not sure what to look for. I did find the section for Video and Primary Video and there it just let me select PCI or PEG. It was on PEG, but I switched to PCI and that didn't work at all.

Any ideas? If you need more background please let me know. Not sure how clear I was lol

 

[LinkedKube]

To get into most bios you need to only hit "del" key on boot up. You can also try starting up in save mode(f8) to see if it is in fact a driver issue.

 

[gbelous]

how does starting in safe mode tell me about the driver?
is there any way to know if all other video drivers are disable or removed so i can put in the new card?

is it possible to disable too many video settings and not be able to see the screen if the new driver doesn't work?

 

[LinkedKube]

Under devise manager if you right click your video device and go under properties it should tell you if you have any drivers installed. If you can do this you can be clear on what's installed.

You definately want "peg" enabled. This is pci express option on your board. Starting up in safe mode should allow you to get into windows with or without video drivers installed.

Your motherboard doesn't come with onboard video so you shouldn't have to worry about that issue through the bios.

Make sure "peg" is enabled in your bios(delete key at start up should get you there. If you're sure you're clear of all video drivers restart with your new card installed. Try making it into windows normally, if it hangs at the windows splash screen try to restart and get into windows in safe mode(use the option "with networking.")

 

[gbelous]

there were no video devices in the device manager, when i uninstalled the driver for the geforce card it was removed from there. now when i have the old card in there is an area (i forget the exact term) but says something like not installed hardware or whatever and the old GC shows there.

i put it back to peg, and that's when i get the orig GC to work fine, but the new one has the snow screen and doesnt show any windows or dell loading screen but the noise from the tower sounds like it's all loading. I jsut can't see it.

would it be bad to reload the bios with the old card in there?

 

[LinkedKube]

No, in fact depending how long ago you've upgraded the bios you may want to go to dell's site and see if there is a bios upgrade.

When you say the new one has the snow green you mean that the entire screen is just a green color when you use the card?

 

[gbelous]

ok, yea i just saw that on the dell site, it says it has the bios update 2.5.3 that is urgent and is dated 12/7/2007

this past weekend i just reinstalled the entire OS due to a bad virus, so i have no clue what version it currently has, i've only gotten as far as reloading whatever drivers came with the original cd.

not exactly...i mean it's similar to the snow you see on a tv that doesnt have reception, only its has a few colors in it and it scrolls from the top to bottom of the screen. there is green, blue, red, black, white in it...dont know exactly what colors, but it had several

 

[gbelous]

ok, so turns out that it's just a bad card. I got a replacement one from dell and first try, it works fine...thanks for the feedback!