Nvidia FX 5200 Video Card Fix

[madjim- with the Lord]

I'm having a hard time getting an Nvidia FX 5200 to work without the computer monitor flashing to black or without the TV screen flashing to blue. I have the latest Nvidia drivers and software for the card. Any tweeks or suggestions would be appreciated.

Jim

[marklwood]

Has this card been in the machine for a while? Does it happen right away, or after the machine "heats up"? Since you have more than likely eliminated any software problems already I would try these solutions.

Re-seat the card in the slot. Sometimes even taking it out and cleaning the contacts does the trick. I use a pencil eraser for that little job.

I believe that is a PCIe card. Do you have another slot available for it? Try moving it.

I also think that particular card has an option for a direct power feed from the power supply. You could try that. It may be an aging motherboard issue not giving sufficient power to the card.

Do you have another machine to test the card in? At least you could narrow it down that way.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by marklwood

Has this card been in the machine for a while?

No

Does it happen right away, or after the machine "heats up"?

Yes, right away.

Since you have more than likely eliminated any software problems already I would try these solutions.

Re-seat the card in the slot. Sometimes even taking it out and cleaning the contacts does the trick. I use a pencil eraser for that little job.

I'll give it a shot.

I believe that is a PCIe card. Do you have another slot available for it? Try moving it.

It only fits in one slot.

I also think that particular card has an option for a direct power feed from the power supply. You could try that. It may be an aging motherboard issue not giving sufficient power to the card.

The computer is only five years old, P4 2.9 Ghz.

Do you have another machine to test the card in? At least you could narrow it down that way.

I took it out of a machine that is set up for multi-track audio recording but does not have service XP Service Pack 3. I tried the old drivers but they didn't make things better. It's a bit of a mystery to me.

Thanks

Jim

[marklwood]

Originally Posted by madjim

The computer is only five years old, P4 2.9 Ghz.

If re-seating the card doesn't work, try the power cable directly to the card. I believe you have the option on this card. Since you didn't say anything about an error message, I would venture to guess the computer doesn't "know" about the issue. That is why I was leaning toward a low power problem. Could be the slot not making good contact and causing a low power situation, or the MB itself doing the same. That was why my last suggestion was to power directly from the power supply. Since I assumed you already had updated drivers and patches, I tried to think about the other things I have seen over the years.

[marklwood]

Hey Jim, I just thought of one more thing. Does your motherboard have onboard graphics? It may be reverting to that. In bios you should be able to set a priority to disable onboard graphics if another card type is present. Usually a selection like AGP/PCI/Integrated. And combinations of available slots by priority. The machine will read from any available video with generic VGA drivers until windows gets to the boot loader so don't be scared to disable onboard graphics. You can always hook a monitor to the onboard to reset your bios.

The other thing I have had to do software wise is to boot in safe mode, uninstall all the video drivers and start from scratch letting my new ones be the only ones present. This happens sometimes when the old drivers just don't want to let go, or the uninstall is incomplete.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Thanks Mark,

I cleaned the contacts on the card and set the bios to "PCI" with the same results. When I'm using the NVIDIA control panel and click between the two 3D Setting options, the TV flashes to blue and back every time. The card is working but the flashing to blue and back on the TV screen is a pain. I don't get this on my show machine which uses an ATI card.

I don't have any paperwork on the card since it came with the machine it was in. I see a white. 2 pin cable connector on the card. Is this for power? I don't want to blow it up.


Jim