Please bear with me in this very long problem. I recently bought an XFX GeForce 6600 GT AGP and as far as I know, the graphics card itself is not damaged, but.... I installed it into my old gateway system, the kind that has one of those "micro tower" cases. The graphics card worked fine but not too long into a game my monitor would go into standby mode and I would be forced to shut it down the not so safe way. Well I jumped the gun and didn't look at the problem in forums, so I went out and bought a new Raidmax Scorpio 688 case. I figured the issue was because of a power supply problem and indeed it was, so i got the case that included a 420 watt power supply ( the GeForce 6600 GT AGP only requires a 350 watt.) I thought I was safe and i would be enjoying shocking frame rates within a couple minutes. Well i found out my old gateway PSU that came with it was 160 watts, I didn't even know they made them that low, and my computer is definitely not old. So i was glad for my new purchase. I also found out that a molex four pronged small cord was needed for the GeForce 6600 GT AGP to run games, which solved my earlier problem, but I was glad I spent some money and got the case anyway. So I install everything properly, to my knowledge, into the new case, nothing is harmed as far as I can tell. Now a new problem arises. My GeForce is installed, all the previous drivers from my old GeForce FX 5200 are uninstalled and I install the new drivers for the 6600. Well it all works out great and games run fine. I shut the computer down to go do some work, came back, and on startup, everything gets very messed up. When Windows XP loads, towards the end of the loading, the screen's graphics get very awkward and scrambled, and my computer freezes, forcing a shut down and restart. So i restart and go into safe mode. Halfway through safe mode startup the computer also freezes. I had it with trying so i reinstall my Geforce FX 5200, everything is fine.... Which leads me to believe my computer has a power issue.
To sum it all up, I got a new case, installed everything from the old case into the new one, got a better power supply that should run my graphics card, and now windows won't start up because of it. Occassionally I will get the graphics card to install and Windows miraculously works. But the moment I try to startup the computer after i shut it down, it doesn't work again. I heard from one person that my motherboard still thinks I have the 160 watt PSU, so power gets distributed awkwardly, causing system failure on startup. I do not know enough to check certain things like power distribution. or how to make my motherboard know it has a new power supply. Anyone know if there is anything I can do to fix this power problem? I know it's power related or motherboard related, because when I boot up with the new graphics card, some things that require power like a mouse and keyboard don't even work, and most of the time the monitor. Is there any way I can go into BIOS and change around some settings, or maybe it's simpler than that. I have no clue what to do next. Maybe reinstall windows? I want that beautiful nVidia goodness!! Someone please try to help.....
To sum it all up, I got a new case, installed everything from the old case into the new one, got a better power supply that should run my graphics card, and now windows won't start up because of it. Occassionally I will get the graphics card to install and Windows miraculously works. But the moment I try to startup the computer after i shut it down, it doesn't work again. I heard from one person that my motherboard still thinks I have the 160 watt PSU, so power gets distributed awkwardly, causing system failure on startup. I do not know enough to check certain things like power distribution. or how to make my motherboard know it has a new power supply. Anyone know if there is anything I can do to fix this power problem? I know it's power related or motherboard related, because when I boot up with the new graphics card, some things that require power like a mouse and keyboard don't even work, and most of the time the monitor. Is there any way I can go into BIOS and change around some settings, or maybe it's simpler than that. I have no clue what to do next. Maybe reinstall windows? I want that beautiful nVidia goodness!! Someone please try to help.....
