6800ultra video problems

[WafflemanX]

Ok just bought a 6800ultra and installed it. I booted the computer, installed drivers and restarted. On restart after the windows XP load screen all i got was a black moniter. I restarted in safe mode to make sure the screen res and refresh rate were ok and I even downloaded the Nvidia refresh rate over-ride utility. Still nothing. I have to restore my computer to previous working settings and install the video drivers everytime I want to restart my PC. Its kinda a pain in the butt and EVGA tech support is less than helpfull so any tips would be awesome.

 

[GregANDTCH]

So you're saying it works in safe mode?
What video card were you running before?
Maybe you need to clean all your old video drivers out & start over again.
Switch your monitor to the other socket on the video card & see if that makes any difference.

 

[amdskip]

What power supply are you using?

 

[WafflemanX]

yes it works in safe mode and it works perfectly when it doesnt have the drivers installed. What im doing is installing the drivers and just leaving my PC on all the time. I cant restart it without it going to the blank screen
The last card I had was an MSI geforce4 ti4600

Its a 450watt PS, not sure what type though

 

[amdskip]

$10 says its a combination of your power supply and drivers. You need to run a quality power supply, not one that just came with a case and looked good. :thumbsdown:

 

[WafflemanX]

Ok so i just upgraded my powersupply, i bought a 400watt Forton PSU, and its STILL doing the same thing. I happened to be at best buy and noticed that on the 6800ultra box it says that it requires a 450 watt PSU. Could that 50 watts really be causing this problem?
Im running 2 hard drives and a cdrom and dvd drive.

I also ran the driver cleaner program and got rid of all the old video drivers but it didnt help.

help plz

 

[WafflemanX]

anyone?!!?

evga wants me to send it back for another one and that means I wont have a compy for about a week and that cant happen.

 

[Captante]

My 6800GT says the same thing about PSU requirements & it ran fine in my old system with a 350 watt Antec unit, 4 HD's & 2 Optical drives so I think your ok with the Fortron... I think EVGA is right in assuming you have a bad video card & you should return it, don't you have an old PCI card or somthing you can use in the meantime?

 

[Captante]

oops... double post.

 

[pol II]

Well, it is really the 12 volt rail that matters on the power supply. The rated wattage for that card is given at 450W because most generic PSU's need that much total wattage to have their 12v rails of adequate strength. I would suggest that you look at your PSU's 12v output and see what it reads. Anything over 24 amps is likely okay, and anything under 18 - 20 amps is probably not. Those values between 20 and 24 amps are iffy; it really depends on how many other components are hooked up to the PSU (including fans). I do agree with Captante though: Fortron is a well-made PSU.

Which drivers are you using? The most recent (81.xx)? I recall reading that the 8x.xx series drivers were causing black screens on EVGA 6800GT's; switching the drivers to 77.xx solved the problem for those users. EVGA does have a user-to-user support forum as well as the telephone tech support, so maybe you can post this there referencing this thread?

http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/defaultmb.asp


Edit: Here is the thread discussing 6800 and black screens:

http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9177