Physics card is not having any effect

[Porters]

Hi everyone
I have been having a small problem with a physics card that I recently bought and feel that i should look to here for help.

Current hardware
ASUS striker extreme motherboard
Intel Q6600 CPU
2x Nvidia 8600 1Gb graphics cards
2Gb Ram (I cannot find the make)
one 500 Gb SATA hard disk
Arctic power 700W PSU
Supreme FX sound card
Windows Vista Premium 64bit

Actual problem
I put this PC together myself a few months ago and have never had any problems with it. All the games run fine aside from the fact that the physics just doesn't happen. I have tried running the physics on the CPU but it shows no difference (mostly the game I try to use physics in is UT3.) When I put the card in my 3D Mark 06 score went up by about 1000. and for some reason my windows experience index went up for the graphics.

The power is obviously getting to the card because the lights always show up on it. Also the card shows up in the device manager and passes all of the tests with the Nvidia PhysX control panel but when i try to run the demo game that came with the card it says 'No AGEIA PhysX hardware detected. Please check installation.' I have tried the card in both PCI slots and have always checked that the power is plugged into it.

Temperatures
I don't think that temperatures are a problem but here they are anyway
CPU 29C idle 35C under load
Both GPUs run at about 60C at idle or under any load.
I always run my system with the case cover off because I have no air intake fan.

I never get any error reports or major crashes during games it is just that the physics doesn't appear in-game. Please could someone advise me on what I should do.

 

[Tmagic650]

Your choice of a 64-bit version of Vista might be affecting proper operation of the PhysicX card...

 

[Porters]

I don't think anyone else has had problems with 64 bit Vista and physics cards. I shall try the card in our 32 bit PC

 

[Tedster]

If the game does not have a physics driver engine, then your card will not use it. Few software uses or accesses physics cards. Consult the game first. In addition, you are running under vista and a 64 bit flavor at that to compound the problem. I am not surprised at all you're having issues. I would draw back to a 32 version of XP in order to play games.

 

[Porters]

Thank you for the advice. I will try and buy a 32 bit OS

 

[omegafate]

to tell u the truth

nvidia has done away with the hardware aspect of the physix card

and as far as i understand it was integrated in to the GPU's

geforce 8800 and up video cards have this

but thats about as much as i can tell u