I disabled my Nvidia Geforce GT610 graphics card accidentally and now I can't see a thing

annms

Posts: 13   +1
Hey guys, I have searched a lot of forums but haven't found any relevent answers. I am sorry if this is a repeat.

What happened is that I disabled my nvidia graphic card from the control panel and it was too late until I realised my mistake as I had already pressed the restart button. Now I try to start my pc but all that happens is that I hear the sounds I always hear but nothing appears in the screens. I have tried several monitors. I have unhooked the monitor from the nvidia and connected it to the onboard gpu and still no luck. I tried resetting the bios but that didn't help either.

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00 ghz

GPU:
ZOTAC Nvidia GeForce GT610 Synergy Edition.
 
You'll not make that mistake again and neither will I. You can't see anything when Windows boots but you know it's there. Maybe there's a way round this but I never found it and ended up reinstalling Windows.
 
Do you have on-board graphics that you can connect the monitor to? I'm assuming the GT 610 is a dedicated graphics card.

You may need to reset the BIOS to default settings. Pulling the coin size battery on the motherboard for a minute or two does the trick.
 
Do you have on-board graphics that you can connect the monitor to? I'm assuming the GT 610 is a dedicated graphics card.

You may need to reset the BIOS to default settings. Pulling the coin size battery on the motherboard for a minute or two does the trick.
Well, connecting to the on-board graphic card does nothing and I have already reset the bios.(pin as well as battery method). And yes, the gt 610 is a dedicated graphic card.
 
Damn I feel silly, I was so deep in my thoughts looking for a reason, It slipped my mind that you had already answered my previous question. Sorry about that!

One last question and I will be out of ideas. Did you pull the 610 card out before trying the onboard graphics?
 
Damn I feel silly, I was so deep in my thoughts looking for a reason, It slipped my mind that you had already answered my previous question. Sorry about that!

One last question and I will be out of ideas. Did you pull the 610 card out before trying the onboard graphics?
Yeah I did that too! :-(
 
Use built-in gpu and do either:
1. Upon booting, try to press F8. if successful, select last good known configuration.

2. do system restore to date and time when the NVidia gt610 is still fully functional.
 
If the suggestions so far don't do the trick I'd set about reinstalling Windows although I'm not keen on that as a solution. These days I leave my drivers alone particularly those for graphics cards.
 
Use built-in gpu and do either:
1. Upon booting, try to press F8. if successful, select last good known configuration.

2. do system restore to date and time when the NVidia gt610 is still fully functional.
Like I said, built-in (onboard) gpu doesn't give me any display on the screen either. Also, I can't perform a system restore if I can't see a damn thing.
 
If the suggestions so far don't do the trick I'd set about reinstalling Windows although I'm not keen on that as a solution. These days I leave my drivers alone particularly those for graphics cards.
I don't think there us a problem with windows because if that would have been the case then atleast my bios screen woyld have showed up
 
It's easily ten years years since I made the same mistake so I don't remember any details particularly about the bios. I do know though that a reinstall of Windows XP worked fine and that I was able to see all that was necessary on the screen. If you can't get this to work I 'd suggest that your computer is broken. Hopefully, Windows is there but you can't see it because the essential drivers have gone.

In the past there were Windows installation discs and sticking one in the disc drive set the process in motion. On reflection, these days no discs are provided with computers. It's usually a restore partition or in your case you may need to burn a Windows disc. Windows ISO's are available to download for free from Microsoft's partner Digital River.

If the computer doesn’t try to boot from the Windows disc you’ll have to enter the bios and select CD/DVD drive as the first boot option. Working out how to get into the bios can be quite tricky as different computers require different keys to be pressed at particular times. The bios owes nothing to Windows and is a primitive OS on a motherboard chip that starts up Windows. You should be able to get into the bios even though Windows is crippled.
 
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It's easily ten years years since I made the same mistake so I don't remember any details particularly about the bios. I do know though that a reinstall of Windows XP worked fine and that I was able to see all that was necessary on the screen. If you can't get this to work I 'd suggest that your computer is broken. Hopefully, Windows is there but you can't see it because the essential drivers have gone.

In the past there were Windows installation discs and sticking one in the disc drive set the process in motion. On reflection, these days no discs are provided with computers. It's usually a restore partition or in your case you may need to burn a Windows disc. Windows ISO's are available to download for free from Microsoft's partner Digital River.

If the computer doesn’t try to boot from the Windows disc you’ll have to enter the bios and select CD/DVD drive as the first boot option. Working out how to get into the bios can be quite tricky as different computers require different keys to be pressed at particular times. The bios owes nothing to Windows and is a primitive OS on a motherboard chip that starts up Windows. You should be able to get into the bios even though Windows is crippled.
Thanks for your insight and advice. I will try to reinstall windows. It will take me some time though. I'll let you guys know what follows.
 
One thing I'd have tried before I reinstalled Windows would have been to use the Windows disc to attempt a repair of the operating system in the hope that that would replace the drivers that I'd removed. A fresh install of Windows will exclude any personal documents, photos etc that you have on the hard disc.

If you have vital stuff that hasn't been backed up elsewhere you could retrieve this from your hard disc before proceeding. Putting the hard drive in a usb enclosure and accessing it form another computer would enable you to make a copy of such files.

If you haven't got a Windows disc the OS will be identified by a label somewhere on the machine together with the activation code. You will need exactly the same version of the OS.

Good luck with all this. It's a lot to take in.
 
My gut feeling tells me the screen will still be black, when booting from DVD. The BIOS should post an image to screen even without storage media connected. If there is no signal to the monitor at all, changing the media will do nothing.
 
In my situation I was seeing everything as per usual on the screen up to the point when Windows booted to a black screen although I could hear Windows sounds. If nothing's happening onscreen at the start then I'd say that's really bad news. Apart from a reinstall I had no ideas and I spent a long time on it. I agree that the bios should be accessible and visible though as I said beginners often have problems accessing it.
 
No signal even from built-in gpu?
try another port (hdmi, dvi, vga).
try to use another video cable to rule out defective cable.
 
Annms was specific that he disabled the graphics drivers and if that's correct I don't see that it's likely to be a hardware problem. In the early days I thought it important to be sporting the latest drivers and that's what I was trying to do when I boobed. It would be very annoying to go to all the trouble of reviving Windows and find that something like the graphics card had died though.
 
So can't you get into safe mode? I saw that cliffordcooley asked but never saw the answer. The fix is to load safe mode. Otherwise do you have a secondary PCIe x16 slot?'

The onboard graphics probably won't work because their is a discrete GPU. You would have to remove the GeForce GT 610 first, load windows, uninstall the Nvidia drives and then turn the system off and re-install the graphics card.

Update: I just did exactly what you did on a test system. Loaded safe-mode and fixed the problem, takes about 2mins all up.

To enter safe-mode mash the Shift and F8 keys over and over again until the boot menu appears.

Alternatively if you force the system to reset just as it tries to load windows twice in a row it will give the option to load safe-mode, obviously not a recommended or ideal method but if Shift+F8 doesn't work and you can't get into Windows to use the msconfig method then its the only option.
 
Thnx for all yout advice guys but turns out the mobo had more dust than it could take. Cleaning got the onboard gpu working. Now I can enable the gt610. Thnx all again.:)(y)
 
Was about to suggest that you open your case and clean the dust of your pcie-x slot, but you already did that, gj figuring it all out.
 
Was about to suggest that you open your case and clean the dust of your pcie-x slot, but you already did that, gj figuring it all out.
Yeah, but turns out my power supply was screwed up too. Need to change it. Putting a corsaire vs550 in its place.
 
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