please help; computer graphic-card snafu

OK.. Mark bought a new graphics card for the computer (an HP bought last year).. so he installed it.. now our computer is randomly restarting itself.. freezin up.. getting this weird pixellated thing where it look like it is raining colored pixels on a black background.. he installed it all as he was supposed to.. anyone have any ideas here? I am about ti go insane, and I will be lucky if I am even allowed to type this whole thing before this &^%$$ thing resets itself again... please help!! :confused: :confused: :confused: The requirements on the box for the card are all well within our computer's reach.. argh!

Is it an AGP or a PCI express card? Is it firmly seated in the socket? Wiggle it gently and make sure that there is no movement. Have you checked ur bios settings?(provided that hp gives you an option of course). Try reinstalling the drivers for it and see if that solves the problem.

PCI express.. it was working great the first day, I was playing Quake 4 with it and the graphics were just killer.. We can check the Bios settings; Mark had to set it to ignore the factory card b/c I guess you can't remove that.. argh

You might be having a driver conflict.

If you disabled the "built in" card, did you also uninstall it from the OS? I don't think that it would necessarily cause any conflicts, but one never knows.

Also might be memory issues - and if it is a hungry newer card it could be milking your power supply dry. Are you still using the factory HP power supply? Also which card is it?

I built 4 PCIe gaming rigs over christmas and ran into a few hiccups.

He disabled the original card.. it does not appear that the new card is loose at all.. it does seem almost like the computer is starving for power really. the name of the card is Radeon X 1600 pro. Any more thoughts?

How many watts is the power supply? Less than 400W might be a problem - and the stock supplies in a lot of pc's leave a lot to be desired.

What model HP is it?...and ditto on the power supply thing. I built a dual-core monster for my friend last week and the minimum power supply used was 450watts.

It would be helpfull if you posted all of the specs for your computer. Also, what screen resolution are you at and what color bit are you using. Make sure you get the drivers from the vendor website. its always a better option to ensure the most updated drivers are installed. Try going into Device Manager and seeing if there are any problems because it could be a resource conflict with old drivers or something like that.

I will get the specs this afternoon after work.. it is an HP Media Center edition if that helps any.

lots of good advice from others so I wont repeat, another thing you should check for is a bios update from hp. If the computer is year or more old take to check the specs of pci express slots...they are NOT all the same.

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

it is an HP Media Center edition if that helps any.

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I think that would be referring to the software package which comes with the OS. If you look at the front of the unit or maybe in the back you should see something similar to, "HP pavilion m1234."

If it WAS working and then went wonky (suddenly or slowly) my money is on power supply. Just two hours ago I went through something identical with someone's dell. Lots of artifacting on the screen, wrong colors/shapes/lines popping in and out. Did a full memtest etc - boiled down to a weak stock power supply.



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(Unrelated note - if anyone knows candidates who could fill a Help Desk Lead position I am desperate as all get out to be able to stop covering the extra duties ;) shoot me a PM - and don't be angry if I can't reply immediately)

We returned the card to the store; Mark looked into it more and is going to get a G-Force 7800.. their tech support said they thought it might be a bad card.. because it seemed like our poser supply is more than sufficient. We'll see how the G-Force goes; any reviews on it? We haven't bought one yet, we are waiting on it..

I installed 2 7800's and 2 7950s in those boxes i mentioned earlier - they are every bit as power hungry as the radeon's and will likely want some beefiness as well. Yes - I am nvidia fanboi I am afraid!



I hope everything works out for you though! What are you guys gaming?

Mark loves playing Quake 4; I think it is really awesome too, definately it has come a long way since the first one! He also plays CounterStrike, though I myself don't have much free time to game, he gets a kick out of it. :) I used to be quite the gamer girl; we played Unreal with a buncha computers hooked up together; that was fun!