GeForce 5500 in a HP Pav a405n need help!

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bp238

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Hi,
Just got a HP Pavillion a405n and am trying to install a GeForce 5500 video card in it and having some issues. When I get it installed I go to the bios and disable onboard video and select PCI video, restart and windows XP starts to load and when it gets to the part where the desktop should show up the screen goes blank. I've been on the internet all morning trying to diagnose why. I've unistalled reinstalled many times still to the same ending. Got the latest Gforce driver from nvidia website. I've installed drivers for the monitor....3 times..no help. After I install the card and still have the monitor plugged into the onboard monitor plug and hav'nt disabled onboard yet, it looks like the card is putting the video through the onboard connection. But when I try to change the refresh rate or screen size, the picture rotates 90 degrees and screws all up! Anyone got a clue here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
 
Why PCI? Doesn't the a405n have an AGP slot?

Can you boot in Safe mode on the new card? If so, uninstall all of your old drivers and give it another try.

I've never seen a picture rotate 90 degress. Make sure you have the right BIOS configuration. Some onboard graphics processors will allow you to run two monitors (one off the board and another off the card).
 
Thanks GSP. No AGP slot on this one unfortunately...I did boot in safe mode to get the video and change things but it never works when booted normally. I did notice this driver has a rotate option built in so that's probably the reason for that glitch. How do you mean Bios configuration? I went to one site and they said check for things like "IRQ for PCI video card" ect.....Thing is, this bios is REAL basic. Only mention about the video is the selection for PCI or ONBOARD. Thats it.
I'm wondering if the onboard is letting me run of the board connection but why when I hook to the card connection I get nothing?
 
That's the problem with some of the "value" systems. Cheap graphics and no AGP slot.

PCI for video in the BIOS should be enough. The setting is probably not even necessary unless you are using dual monitors. The BIOS should find the display with a monitor connected. If you can boot on the new card in Safe mode, the problem is not with the BIOS.

Do you have another old PCI card you could try? What about using safe mode to set your display to something really basic like 640x480 and 256 colors? Can you boot normally under these conditions?

The odd part is the behavior when you plug back into the board. I had a strange monitor handshaking problem once after the monitor was plugged into a bad card. I fixed it (accidently because I thought the monitor was toasted) by unplugging the monitor for awhile.
 
turns out the refresh rate I selected was not available in the monitor and that caused the sideways picture. I selected another available one and it switched OK. Of course this is all with the monitor plugged into the board...not the card. So, the driver is installed and appears to be working, monitor looks good, specs read out like they should in the adapter specs. Only thing is the monitor is plugged into the board, not the card. Is it possible this is OK? Or am I not getting the performance i paid for. I dunno, just setting this thing up and don't have any games on it yet, although I might not know it if I did...not the expert here..
 
you should be plugged into your VC , See if theres a bios update available for the MB .Try uninstalling the PCI card clear out all the drivers then restart using the onboard .Then shut down again and install the PCI card boot up and install the drivers .When asked to reboot cancel and shut down then switch the monitor over to the VC and reboot .
 
There is one update available for the bios but it has nothing to do with the problem, heres what the website says at HP:
Fixes

- Resolves an issue causing the PC to detect the Apple iPod as a USB CD-ROM drive.

- Resolves an issue preventing the PC from detecting the Philips DVD/CD+R/RW combo drive.

- Resolves an issue preventing the PC from booting from a second hard disk drive.


This is the only bios update available.

The sequence you noted above is exactly what I did to get where I am now with the drivers working on the monitor plugged into the board, not the card. I can shut down, go to bios and change to pci video and reboot and the monitor goes out when desktop shows up. Shut down, switch back and everything is fine. The monitor even goes out when I set the res to 640x480. But it works in safe mode but ofcourse it is using a simple virtual driver. Dunno, does anyone have a suggestion for a good card to put in this machine? I want to play DVD's on this to my sony 50 inch lcd via the DVI out to the HDMI in on the TV. Figured I would need a pretty good card to do that. A cool game or two wouldn't be bad on the bigscreen either!! Just thought you might want to know where I'm going with this....
 
while it's still plugged into motherboard right click desktop, go to properties,settings, and tell us what is says under display
 
Here is the update for the onboard graphics driver, or what it says it fixes....
Fixes

- Resolves Microsoft Windows XP Send/Don't Send error messages.


Not sure if that will do it either......

GageMW, I went to the properties and it says....
1. Plug and play monitor on Intel(R) 82845G/GL Graphics Controller
2. Default Monitor on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500

Very Interesting.......This is my first venture into XP.....held on to 98 as long as I could stand. In the display above the info above mentioned, there is a box with a graphic of 2 monitors above which it says "drag the monitor icons to match the physical arrangemant of your monitors" Never saw anything like that in 98! So what am I supposed to do here? I feel like if it were a snake.....I'd shoot it's head off with a shotgun.
 
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