Problems with new video card...?

Question

I am having problems with the new card that I purchased. It’s an X1950Pro made by HIS. Basically what’s happened is that when I tried doing the drives the way the instructions say to do it, when everything was done installing, the computer froze except for being able to move the mouse and then the monitor went black. The computer was still on and running, but the monitor’s led was blinking like the computer was off. I had to crash the computer in order to get it to reboot. I turned the computer back on and was never able to get the monitor to show a picture.

I put my old card back in and just let windows give it drivers. I uninstalled all software that had to do with ATI, including the drivers.

More info to come, went over 1000 words.

I ran driver cleaner as well. Turned the computer off, put the new card back in. Turned the computer back on, hit cancel when the new hardware wizard popped up, and just installed the driver for the card, and nothing else. Driver installed ok, and a box popped up that said when I restart the computer, the driver will completely install and the card will go through some tests.

I reboot the computer, and it starts it’s testing and then the monitor goes black and I am right back where I started with the computer on and the monitor’s led blinking again.

I’m not sure what else to do now. I have since put my old card back in and I am at a loss on what to try next.

The drivers came with the disk provided with the video card.

Also, I purchased a PCI-E to Molex adapter. It's a 1 to 1 conversion.

Anyone have any ideas as to what’s wrong?

I used driver cleaner to get rid of the old drivers completely.

I would really hate to find out this is a bad card, since I dropped down $214 for it.

Thank you Bjorn!

I have done what you said in regards to running in VGA mode.

It will now boot to the desktop and I am posting this with the Radeon card installed.

However, when I try to go above the default setting, it gives me that black screen mentioned earlier.

Answer 1

So it will show video when you first turn the computer on, but once it gets into windows, there is no video?

Most likely the issue is that the monitor will not support either the resolution or the refresh rate that the video card outputs.

Try booting into VGA mode. To do this you would hit the "F8" key a few times before the "Windows XP" splash screen shows up on the computer. From there select "Enable VGA mode". What this does is sets both the resolution and the refresh rate to default levels.

If the monitor still does not display anything, try the other DVI port on the back of the card. If you still get nothing, try another monitor (preferably a newer one).

If that still does not work, try installing the card on a different computer.

Basically you are just trying to isolate the problem. If it still does not work on another computer, then there is definitely an issue with the card itself. All card manufacturers have at least a 1 year warranty on their cards, all you should have to do is go to the HIS website and go to warranty and follow their directions.

Answer 2

did you comepletely uninstall the drivers for you old card first? this happened to me once when i replaced a card. Make sure you uninstall your old drivers then shut down system. Put in new card then install new drivers for new card...should work, if not could be bad card.