Faulty Installation

[T0t]

Faulty Installation?

For some reason, I think I installed my ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128mb vid card incorrectly. This was my second video card installation but my first video card that required it to be hooked up to the psu. I obviously called my comps tech support so they could walk me through this installation. One thing to keep in mind is that I have two fans installed. The instructions on the 9800 Pro said to install one end of the cable hooked up the 9800 PRO to the psu and the other one to the hard drive. When I called tech support the guy assisting me said to hook one end up to the psu and the other end onto a fan. Af first I thought this seemed logical, I mean the fan is connected to the HD, so why not connect the vid card to the fan. I told him what the instructions said, but he said to trust him. He does build computers for a living. So I trusted him. I've always wondered wether I installed it inccorectly or not. Thanks in advance, I appreciate it.

 

[T0t]

Oh, forgot to post system specs. Don't know if they'll help any, but might as well post em anyways. Darn edit button wont work =/.

AMD Athlong 64 3200+
2 case sleeve fans 8x8
Abit Kv8-Pro VIA KT-800
512 MB Kingston 400mhz DDR Ram
Maxtor 160gb 7200rpm (8mb SATA-150) HD
Sony 16x dvd
NEC DVDRW +/- 8x
600 watt subwoofer + speakers
1.44mb floppy
Multimedia Keyboard
Optical Mouse
Thermal Meter
6 in 1 card reader
Blue Bold Cathode neon light
Windows XP HOME
Orion 420Watt psu
ATI Radeon 9800 PRO
Nec 17' LCD Display

 

[Cappy]

if you have an extra power cable not shared with anything else thats what id connect to the video card.Uniterupted power source is allways best.See if you can reconfigure your power cables.

 

[T0t]

Yeah, I did connect to an unused power cable for the "connect to psu part" but for the "connect to HD part" I connected it to a fan which was connected to the hard drive. Thats what the tech support crew told me to do. Again, all suggestions and comments are appreciated.

 

[T0t]

Comeon guys, anybody? I dont want to seem like a pest but this is quite urgent.

 

[Cappy]

as long as your video card has its own power source your ok.
Connect whatever else your not sure of in a normal fashion.

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Theres no such thing as connecting your vid card to your hard drive.If you need power then just use the extra power plug in your puter.No what is the problem no video at all.Also did you uninstall your old video drivers first.If not that will be a problem Go into your control panel and system ,device manager, hardware,desplay devices and see if you have drivers for both uninstall the drivers for both and then have your vid driver disk in cdrom.then restart and install drivers off the disk.You might have to start this process in safe mode.F8 while booting for safe mode.PM me if I can help.

 

[T0t]

No, no problem. It just seems as if I'm not getting the performance I thought I'd be getting from a 9800 PRO. =/ I have no past drivers. When I got my new card I reformatted then installed the new drivers. so the only drivers on my computer are for the 9800 PRO.