Computers & Networking

[Jamo1]

Hi, I have two questions that i'd like to ask

1) I've Had the 1GB PNY 9800GT for 3 months now installed and working without any problems. However after shutting the computer down the night before and then booting the computer back up today; the card seems not to be recognised at all anymore. My previous 6150LE graphic card seemed to have magically been re-enabled and I have no idea why. I havent installed or changed anything to the computer or BIOS. Re-Installing the card doesnt work either. I've tried reseating it in the PCIe slot. Checking the power connector. Nothing works. Yet the fan is still spinning on the card?? It's simply not being recognised at all. My Specs are.

HP a1630n
XP Media Edition SP2
AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core 5200+
2 Gig of Ram
PNY 9800GT 1GB
Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU with three 12V rails.

+12V1 0.5A 22.0A ±5％ 120 120
+12V2 0.5A 22.0A ±5％ 120 120
+12V3 0.5A 25.0A ±5％ 120 120

Card was hooked up to rail 3 with 25A. Everything worked fine for the 3 months ive had the card. Hopefully someone can help me? Maybe the card went bad already or can it be the PCIe slot or PCIe connector?

2) Can someone also recommend me a new motherboard and processor. I'm thinking of upgrading a little. If the graphic card is no longer good, should i purchase another one of the same type? Three months seems to be too short of a life span IMHO.

[RealGeorgeW Emerging Expert]

What you can try is to go into your BIOS and see if you can force the motherboard to use the 9800 instead of the integrated.

If that doesn't work, go into your Device manager, make sure the 9800 drivers are installed, then foricbly disable the onboard graphics driver.

[Jamo1]

I've already did that before. The card worked perfectly for 3 months. This time however, nothing seems to work. My computer is basically telling me the card isn't installed. I dont know if it went bad or what. The fan still runs on the card.

[RealGeorgeW Emerging Expert]

The radio still works on my car without wheels too.

Do you have another computer you can test it in?

[Jamo1]

A slimline. There's no way that the card will fit though. It barely fitted in my standard HP casing.

[twistedwire]

As George suggested, check your bios settings...could be something as simple as a bad

CMOS battery that reset your bios settings to default.

[u_hsen]

i guess your video card got FRIED. too much gaming?

[Jamo1]

Only FSX for 3 months.

[AJ87]

While your Power Supply had more than enough Wattage (the card requires 400), you're 12 Volt Rail is less than 26Amps (you stated 25A).  Quite possibly you have either burned out or damaged the 12V 25A "rail" on your Power Supply, or damaged the video card running it under power.

The card carries a 1 to 3 year warranty from PNY (depending on whether you registered it), and they are a very fair company to work with on warranty claims, as long as you didn't damage the card.

Suggestions,

You could try finding a power supply that has 26 to 28 amps on the 12 volt rail and see if that gets the card running.  If that doesn't get the video card running, I think you would need to contact PNY for a warranty claim.

You could try installing a video card that requires less power on a different 12 Volt rail, then see if your system recognizes the discrete card over the onboard graphic chipset.

Also, even though your card has a fan on it, sometimes - especially when gaming - you need to install an extra fan to help get rid of excess heat.  That is probably not the issue at this time, but excessive heat could have burned out the video card.

Final question.  One boot before Windows loads, most system's will briefly display the video card chipset and firmware version.  Are you seeing your GeForce 9800 info there?

[Jamo1]

I'm convinced the card simply burnt out. Im purchasing another tomorrow. I did not register it or bother keeping the receipt from best buy, co-incidentally also where i bought my PSU at the same time from someone who assured me it would be more than enough...

The card did tend to run 'warm' (maybe hot if you could feel the heat on the casing when you put your hand on it..? idk) at times, and i was never able to adjust the fan speed settings using rivatuner or ntune. The option was grayed out and could not be changed.  With that said, 25A should be enough.. as i dont play any of the online games like Crysis, WoW..etc; I dont think i was really pushing the card to the limit. I'd rather think it was the  heat as i have alot of wires from the psu jumbled for space and then the 9800gt is already a big card. i only had the two default fans and then the antec psu has a fan blowing downwards..and then the gt also has a fan. I figured that should have been enough.