i'm not a novice and not a tech guru either, but over the years i've done a lot of upgrading of pc components in our home and this one has me totally scratching my head. sorry for the long description:
i bought my son a brand spanking new hp p6180t pc last week. it is a pretty robust machine except for graphics so i also decided to install a graphics card. the pc has windows vista home premium 64 bit, core 2 quad 8300, 6gb ram, etc....the card i bought (from the b/s on atech) is an asus radeon 4670 512mb card. last night i tried unsuccessfully to install it. here's what i did, maybe you guys/gals can help me get it working.
1. installed the card--it was a very tight fit but i got it in there.
2. booted the pc--windows recognized that there was new hardware, searched for a driver and could not find one (first sign of problems). the card is in the slot (fan is working) but the pc has no idea what's in there--no sign of it in device mgr which is using a basic vga driver.
3. put the included asus driver disk in, and in the process of loading the software i get an error message that it couldn't load something. it then finishes installing what it could, and says the driver has been installed. however, there is still no sign that the pc knows the card is there and still shows basic vga driver being used.
4. i rebooted, still no sign of the card being installed and driven by the pc.
5. i tried reinstalling the software a couple more times with the same results. it's now past my bedtime!
6. i went to ati.amd.com to try downloading the software directly from the website. i tried installing the entire software package twice and also tried installing just the driver. each and every time the install would get literally to the end and then totally freeze the pc, necessitating a hard reboot. still no driver and no working video card.
my plan is to take the card out, restore the pc to an earlier date before all this started, and maybe try again...but i'm basically out of my limited bag of tricks. should i try loading the software before installing the card? i can do that, but i thought windows would've recgonized this pretty standard hardware on its own...
i'd really appreciate advice/suggestions. i've never had this happen before. thanks!!
i bought my son a brand spanking new hp p6180t pc last week. it is a pretty robust machine except for graphics so i also decided to install a graphics card. the pc has windows vista home premium 64 bit, core 2 quad 8300, 6gb ram, etc....the card i bought (from the b/s on atech) is an asus radeon 4670 512mb card. last night i tried unsuccessfully to install it. here's what i did, maybe you guys/gals can help me get it working.
1. installed the card--it was a very tight fit but i got it in there.
2. booted the pc--windows recognized that there was new hardware, searched for a driver and could not find one (first sign of problems). the card is in the slot (fan is working) but the pc has no idea what's in there--no sign of it in device mgr which is using a basic vga driver.
3. put the included asus driver disk in, and in the process of loading the software i get an error message that it couldn't load something. it then finishes installing what it could, and says the driver has been installed. however, there is still no sign that the pc knows the card is there and still shows basic vga driver being used.
4. i rebooted, still no sign of the card being installed and driven by the pc.
5. i tried reinstalling the software a couple more times with the same results. it's now past my bedtime!
6. i went to ati.amd.com to try downloading the software directly from the website. i tried installing the entire software package twice and also tried installing just the driver. each and every time the install would get literally to the end and then totally freeze the pc, necessitating a hard reboot. still no driver and no working video card.
my plan is to take the card out, restore the pc to an earlier date before all this started, and maybe try again...but i'm basically out of my limited bag of tricks. should i try loading the software before installing the card? i can do that, but i thought windows would've recgonized this pretty standard hardware on its own...
i'd really appreciate advice/suggestions. i've never had this happen before. thanks!!