New 7600GS Causing Reboots

I have never seen a montior crash a system before. The graphics card pretty much just sends the instructions to the monitor, there is no real "feedback" from the monitor...monitor drivers may be another question though, were any specific drivers supplied with the monitor? Check if any are offered at the manufacturer's website.

Can you boot into Safe Mode using the 5700? If so, there should be no damage to the card and the problem is in the drivers.

Power, disconnect your second optical drive and the second HDD if it is not significant to running the games (also, say, any USB devices attached). Check the specifications for the new graphics card, I know a minimum PSU size is specified for high powered graphics cards.

If you are at a loss and want to try something, run System File Checker.

When you uninstall the drivers, change the card and reboot, are you clicking Cancel when the New Hardware wizard runs, otherwise Windows will just install what it believes to be the best drivers (and it sounds like they are the wrong ones)? You need to run the driver installation program from the CD when only "standard" drivers are loaded, that way new (nVidia) driver files can overwrite old ones, if nVidia drivers are loaded at the time, new versions will not overwrite old versions.

When the New Hardware wizard runs there are several methods of installing the drivers. Use "I will select the drivers from a list ", see if you can find the manufacturer and model, but even if you can't, use the "Have disk..." button and direct the wizard to the drivers CD.

Matt
Big PS: Do you have the updated Intel chipset drivers (Intel chipset, correct)?
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...XP+Home+Edition&lang=eng&strOSs=45&submit=Go!

 

Hi Christer,
Forceware vs Detonator, I have only read briefly. I still don't know what the effects of the driver cleaner would be. It seems to be a driver problem from my experience.

The old card should (re)install cleanly. I very much doubt there is a physical problem with the card (now neither card works correctly).

Any and all are welcome to prove me wrong. I don't mind, it's a learning experience for me.

Matt
Edit:

I would not discount software.

 

So I stopped at CompUSA on Saturday and bought a CompUSA branded 500 (or was it 550) watt PSU and brought it up to my apartment, took out the 360 watt Silencer and plug in this light weight (literally) thing into my PC.

Well, for whatever reason, it works!!!

Now, I have not gone through the troubles of trying to update my motherboard BIOS or Windows driver checks, but would still like to do so.

I called PC Power and Cooling and they are convinced it’s not a power issue and that it’s somehow a hardware issue that is simply working better with the new PSU. Perhaps, my motherboard or the gpu likes cheap quality power better? Also of interest, the voltage indicators on the new CompUSA model show that it’s running at slightly higher voltage reading as compared to the PCP&C unit. So, long story short, I’m not 100% convinced it’s lack of wattage, but for sure the new, cheaper unit seems to be doing the job.

Interestingly, this run in line with what Chiles4 was saying about a cheaper unit of lesser quality doing the trick.

Of course, I’m not allowed to return and replace the old 360 Silencer (it’s been over 30 days). So that seems to be about 65 buck gone to nothing. Now I spend 80 bucks for the new, lesser quality unit, but I’m wondering if it’s going to fry the board. Maybe I should just **** in up, bring it back and pop for an Antec model….who knows.

 

Tom,

Glad you got things working! Your CompUSA is a rebranded something-or-other power supply. I've had a friend use their PSUs without problem. See what the warranty on it is. Honestly, I don't think CompUSA would use a poor-quality brand.

If your voltage rails as shown in your bios are close to spec, it sounds like you're in a good position. Of course, no one knows if your new PSU will last a year or catch on fire tomorrow.

The quality (and wattage) you need in a power supply depends somewhat on how demanding a user you are and whether you intend to upgrade and add hardware in the future.

I've used Thermaltake 420W units I got for about $35-40 each and they've all been running like the energizer bunny for more than a year. Even on my heavily overclocked gaming rig, I threw in a Rosewill 550W PSU I got for only about $59. I picked it because of the specs it showed on its 12v voltage rail. It's been working perfectly. Seems to enforce the point that you don't always have to buy the best to do just fine.

I had a friend put 4 or 5 hard drives in a PC with an Antec PSU. He then upgraded his video card and his PC would reboot every 1/2 hour or so. But even after he took out all the drives but two, his box would either reboot or not even start. Apparently, he abused his PSU to death.

But given the pricing on PSUs these days, I recommend a minimum of 500 watts.

 

The part about the PSU catching fire is just not that comforting....

I agree though, I think worst case is the CompUSA model may not have the legs of a better brand, but will do the job, as it's been doing, in the meantime. Although $80 not the cheapest you can pay, so maybe it's better than I think. And I also agree you don't need to spend for the best to get the job done (though my next NEW build WILL get the best MB and PSU I can afford...the former being such a pain to upgrade and the latter being the only essentially long-term component)

Also, I'm NOT overclocking or a heavy user. This is just a plain vanilla Intel AGP system I wanted to give one last breath before leaving it be forever.

Working or not, I'm still suspicsious over the whole thing. Consider this, the only truly new power requirement for the upgrade was the DIFFERENTIAL POWER REQUIREMENT BETWEEN THE OLD 5700LE AND THE NEW 7600GS. Further, my old PSU was a 200 watt Antec unit, nothing special at all.

So it stands to reason to ask onself, is the 7600gs really that much of a power hog? Or perhaps there is something in hardware of software causing a "false" power requirement (i.e. faulty hardware).

I'm still half tempted to take my 300 gig drive, format it and bring the contents of my 40 gig drive over to the 300 gig drive in it's entirety. The reason for this is I tend to get a master/slave error on boot (a problem going on well before the PSU issue) and wonder what this would do to power requirements

Another thing I might do is wipe the 300 gig drive, format it and install Windows here...a fresh slate so to speak. I already have a hard drive container for the 40gig drive so I woulnd't lose file, etc... But of course would have to deal with the long term fun of reloading software as wanted/needed.

Or I may just leave well enough alone

 

Tom,

Don't take my "catching on fire" too literally. There's a relatively high failure rate for new PSUs because of the large amounts of power they handle. Often, even a new, high-quality PSU will blow into flames as soon as you power it on. If you've been running fine, chances are you should be okay.

I also recommend an $11 power supply tester. I always test my new PSUs before putting them in a PC.

Regarding cost of PSUs, PCP&C is WAY out there in terms of price. I don't think anyone even comes close. There are some other PSU namebrands out there like Silverstone and OCZ that are very high quality but are probably nowhere's near the price of a PCP&C.

Post back here for component suggestions when you build your next rig. I always buy one generation behind the leading edge plus I'm a bargain hunter to boot so I save a lot of money on PC parts.

Gary