[Rant] Worst Graphics card installation ever [Solved]

[gargoyle_eva]

Ok, I'm out of my mind stressed about this right now. Here goes the story:

Bought a new graphics card (gtx550ti) to install into my fairly old gaming rig. ( core2quad something with 4gb ram, 1 hdd , 1 ssd and 2 dvd drives running from a 400W psu)
I was having some problems, I figured they were coming from the old drivers not being deleted properly due to a slightly over eager install. Unplugged the card, booted from onboard graphics, deleted all the old drivers and installed the new ones from Nvidia's website. Then the real problems began.

If my motherboard video options are set to auto or pci-e, I had no picture showing up. Unplug the card and it will run on the onboard graphics fine. After some more of this song and dance, during resetting the cmos I bumped the card. All of a sudden it won't detect it. Reseated the card and tried again, detects the card this time but still can't get picture coming through it. Went to do the whole driver song and dance again except this time I rebooted after each item was removed.

Then things took a turn for the worse. After the bios screen, right where my windows loading screen should be I get a black screen with blinking cursor and nothing else. Nothing responds, Nothing beeps, just nothing.

Tl;DR
installed new graphics card, Worked for about 5 minutes, Driver hell, Could only get video from onboard graphics. Pc now stops after bios screen and does absolutely nothing.

I'm kinda lost as to where to go from here now. Ideas before I go on a rampage?

 

[Dave]

Do you have a 2 monitor setup? When I did my last upgrade I had much the same issue and it was trying to show everything on a second monitor that would not work. I had to boot it with only 1 monitor to get it to default.

 

[gargoyle_eva]

only 1 monitor on this rig for the last month. I have taken a break to clear my head, Will try again in a few minutes and see if a calmer me can divine some more information.

Edit:
so after leaving it at the nothing stage for 2 minutes or so, it decides to boot to windows.
Deleted all the drivers again, Device manager picks up a second display adapter , but says it has an error, and only shows up as a generic device. Nvidia's auto driver detection on the website picks it up correctly.

So now I have a very slow booting computer for no apparent reason, and a graphics card that doesnt work. In a few hours who knows, I might be back to where I started (obligatory xkcd comic reference)

 

[gargoyle_eva]

Update:
After hanging out with my girlfriend for 10 minutes I came back and tried things again. I even got my old dual monitor setup working again now. Only thing is now after the bios splash screen it sits at the blank screen with a flashing cursor for a good minute or 2 before booting to windows. This I can live with but I was wondering if anybody knows what the hell is causing it or how to get it back to my super fast boot speed?

 

[Ravenpoe]

Update:
After hanging out with my girlfriend for 10 minutes I came back and tried things again. I even got my old dual monitor setup working again now. Only thing is now after the bios splash screen it sits at the blank screen with a flashing cursor for a good minute or 2 before booting to windows. This I can live with but I was wondering if anybody knows what the hell is causing it or how to get it back to my super fast boot speed?

Check the boot order. It sounds like it's trying to boot from something it shouldn't be booting from. Is it set to boot from cd, and do you have a cd in the disc drive?

 

[gargoyle_eva]

Thats exactly what it is like poe, but no disks in drives. I will investigate further when I get a chance though.

Also, main problem with this install....dodgy hdmi cable. I think it was working all those times i had no picture but the cable was screwy. FML!

 

[PatrThom]

I got a replacement GPU for my computer, too. Strangely, it only ever works the second time I boot the computer. Some careful investigation shows that one of the capacitors is dented/loose (previous user was probably a installerklutzkopf), should be able to resolder it someday, but for now I essentially have to bang on my computer every time I want it to boot. Not cool.

--Patrick

 

[gargoyle_eva]

I had that problem with a short on an old dvd drive. Slight rust spot on the top and dent in the top of the case was causing a short and random reboots. Swapped drive to another bay and poof, gone.

Also figured out the blank screen issue, left my thumb drive plugged in, was attempting to boot from it. DOH!