Oh no... may have fried my card... HELP!

[Caviman2201]

Ok, so I downloaded RivaTuner 15.2. I have an eVGA 6800 nu that I just bought. I checked the "Enable pixel/pipes" thing under the NVStrap. Everyone said that theirs was working fine. I rebooted, ran 3d03 and halfway through game 3 the whole PC shut down. Now I restart and the monitor light never goes from amber to green meaning the monitor is getting NO input. what have i done??? :eek:

EDIT: ok... the thing is only getting worse... i put in my old 5700 and at first it booted fine. then i tried putting the 6800 back in and rebooting, nothing. So i put the 5700 BACK in and now i can't boot on the 5700 EITHER... someone please help me....

[Caviman2201]

when i first boot, the two CD drives blink like crazy.. there are no beeps from the mobo but the HDD LED on the front just lights and stays lit and it just sits there... :(

EDIT: Wow it just keeps getting better... i reboot after some prayer and holding "Insert" on boot, reboot and it comes up saying CMOS Checksum Error -- Defaults Loaded. I have the option of F1 to continue or Del to enter setup. I press F1 thinking it just loaded the defaults. It proceeded to go to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner and it just sits there. Did RivaTuner really screw up my system that badly?????

EDIT AGAIN: So I reboot, press Del, go into CMOS setup and put everything back (it set FSB to 100MHz and Multiplier was at "By SPD"... I reboot and it tells me "Error loading Operating System"... so it toasted my OS... Now I get to format and re-install Windows... :-/ Screw RivaTuner... it messed EVERYTHING up...

LAST EDIT: Ok, I'm going to bed... I can't take the drama anymore. I tried booting from WinXP CD, quick formatted the HDD, setup rebooted the PC and it came up with the same error. "Press any key to boot from CD.....Error loading operating system"

I hope someone can shed some light for me... I really hope I didn't cook my mobo or HDD or something to that nature... someone plz help... I need an expert or a miracle...

[Caviman2201]

Great... now I have this annoying voice in my head that just keeps saying, "You couldn't just leave well enough alone, could you? You were up to 9500 3d marks... But nooooo, you had to go and be an idiot and not realize that Murphy HATES you!"

Yes, I'm feeling quite sorry for myself right now... :(

EDIT: Well, I have formatted the HDD twice now from booting on the Windows XP CD. I keep getting the "Error Loading Operating System" message... Is it really possible that I cooked my Hard Drive?

Please help me out guys...

[Sentential]

Have you tried another vcard in that computer? Also have you tried the 6800 in a different PC?

[consumer9000]

Had it been just your videocard that had gone on the fritz, I doubt all this accompanying voodoo would have hit your comp. Sounds like something else either went to hell at the same time, or something entirely different is to blame. Like he said, have you tried the videocard in a different system? Use some logic and common sense and troubleshoot your system step by step:
-Test VGA Card...Pass/Fail?
+Pass: Move on to next test matrix
-Fail: Replace VGA Card

From there test the obvious, like your powersupply, your RAM, your HDD and your motherboard. If you don't have the means to do so perhaps your local computer shop can help you out for a few bills...good luck.

BTW...don't listen to that silly voice, reason isn't what brought mankind this far! :beer: We've all been there, and life will go on.

[Caviman2201]

Ok, the latest update is: I put the 6800 back into the PC, rebooted and voila, I have monitor input. The system boots, goes through CMOS fine, loads all the drives and then comes down to where it looks for a bootable CDROM... At this point, with the WinXP CD OUT of the drive, it says "Error loading operating system". When I insert the WinXP CD, boot off the cd and format the HDD, everything goes fine until the reboot after the format & copy. It reboots, goes through CMOS fine, loads all the drives, comes down to where it should start Windows setup (after it checks for a bootable CD) and says again "Error loading operating system".

Now, does this mean that my HDD is fried but the vid card is fine? Tonight after work I think I'm going to go ahead and put the HDD into another PC, see if that PC can format it and install onto it. If it can't, I'm figuring the HDD took a crap. If it can install onto the drive, what else could be wrong?

[consumer9000]

Well, the operating system not loading has nothing to do with the functionality of your videocard, and if you can now read your display, I suspect the card might not have been seated properly when things went wrong. It's possible your harddrive (is it an IBM by anychance?) started developing bad sectors and now it finally refuses to load the OS...usually that won't cause the system to just suddenly turn off though. What kind of powersupply do you have? You can try reformatting and reinstalling the OS and monitoring the drive for bad sectors.

[Caviman2201]

It's possible that the card was not seated properly... the HDD is a Maxtor 80G 8MB 7200RPM... I have an off brand 400W PSU "Hilo"... And with regard to the reformat and reinstall, I tried that. I have tried that 3 times now. I boot from WinXP CD, format as usual (I tried both the "quick" and full reformat)... after it formats and copies the files necessary, WinXP Setup reboots the pc (I typically just leave the CD in the drive), it searches for the bootable CD, asks if I want to boot from it, I don't press anything to let it go into XP setup and it just goes right back to the original error "Error loading operating system". It's gotta be one of 2 things. Either the HDD took a dump or something is malfunctioning with the MoBo and not allowing it to format the drive. I would love a second or third opinion though...

[Brundle Fly]

...ummmm, how about your XP CD itself? Could it be damaged. Is it the original, or a backup CD? If it's a backup, try the original. If you don't have a backup, tsk tsk, originals should remain in the jewel case, and only allowed out to be burned...

...seein how RivaTuner isn't messing with your mobo, and your vidcard seems to be working, I'd say it's the CD itself, or your CD ROM/burner. Have you tried another, or taken one out, and only booted with one CD ROM/burner? I've had to open my burner and clean the lens with a Q-Tip and rubbing alcohol cause it got full of dust. Me, I always look for cheap fixes before looking at the most expensive parts of a system, unless it's obviously something big/expensive... :)

[JRayJ]

I had a similar problem and ended up formatting my hard drive 3 times to find out that my 2 y/o daughter had pushed the floppy disk into my drive without me knowing. The xp cd would boot it up fine. But no go off of setting cmos back to booting off of floppy.

<<<Doh>>> I felt DUMB........

Check it all the same. Hehe.

EDIT: And yes I reseated everything in the comp to come to that conclusion. Oh well my 2 cent.

[Caviman2201]

I have the original WinXP CD... It doesn't have any scratches... I have not tried booting from a different CDROM drive... I have a Sony DVD-ROM and a LiteOn DVD-RW drive... I could try the DVD-RW drive... I've never had problems before though. I don't think it could be that though, because it does go all the way into the format utility on the XP CD. It goes through the format process without a hitch... it just won't go into setup after the reboot. it just tells me over and over... "Error loading operating system"

As for the 3.5" Floppy idea... I dont even have a floppy drive installed... I yanked it when I installed the card to keep from draining power from the 6800...

[CandymanCan]

Try doing a Hard reformatt and repartition with a Boot disk if you can

[Caviman2201]

I've never actually done that before... you mean make a 3.5" floppy boot disk from the WinXP environment? I don't think I've ever even seen the interface... will it prompt you to put the WinXP CD in?

[Rumrunner]

correct me guys, if im wrong, but i noticed that he mentioned that he had problems with his video input and his cd rom input...and the chipset coorelates those two. maybe the rivatuner corrupted the chipset driver. how about booting with the latest chipset driver?

[gutyreader]

Heeeerree we go.

Firs tof, it could be your MBR _OR_ and even AND your NTLDR that are messed up.
But then, you formated again, so it isnt the NTLDR (at least, not anymore, a fresh instal from winXP writes a new one.)
Boot with your winXP CD in the drive, get in the repair console (google if you really cant find how, it SHOULD be pretty obvious, but it isnt always the case. Depends on the winXP version.) In there, type FIXMBR . *Note: I'm doing this from memory, command names could be slightly wrong, in which case, simply type help or /?, again depending on the version (and most specificly: language) of your winXP.*

MBR stands for master boot record, it's 'hidden' (not really hidden, more like you jus dont have direct acces to it.. in theory.) on the first sector of the first cylinder of your HDD. It holds the partition table and a lot of very vital info.
In order for your CMOS and then OS to fully function, this table must end with a string of 4 very specific character. The actual value isnt important since you do not have acces to it anyway. (good thing cause I'll be damned if I ever manage to remember those 4.)

Boot up again, without the WinXP CD

If it works? Yay!

If it doesn't: procede.

Now your one bad lucked monkey. Next up is checking wether the primary partition is set active.
Windows, being big dumb and unreliable, limits even itself. No version of Windows (not too sure about 3.1 and before.) is able to boot from a secondary partition. Thus, your windows OS must be installed on the first partition of your drive. The one that starts on the first cylinder. That should be no problem, since the WinXP installation check for that. What it doesnt alwas check though, is wether the primary partition is set active. If you ain't an old timer, you probably dont evn know what the heck I'm talking about. An active partition is a wicked way of adding an "attribute" (kinda like the 'hidden' or 'archive' attribute of files under the Windows File Manager) to a partition, and windows only boots if it sees itself on an active partition.
Now, to check if your main partition is set active, the best way i know of is getting an trusty boot floppy from win98 (you can easely google for an image of one, with surely a decent guide to writing it correctly.)
Get your win98 boot disk, push it in, boot up, and wait. You'd normally get a menu with 3 listing, if my memory si correct. 1- boot with cd-rom support ; 2- boot without cd-rom support ; 3 - help.
Pick either of the first 2.
When the disk is done installing a shabby version of DOS, youll get a comand prompt. More likely to be 'A:\>' type 'fdisk' and press enter.
Fdisk is the old way of checking out the partition table (that thing in the boot sector that tells the compy where the partitions start.)
Pick choice 4, which should stand for 'looking at the partitions'
One of them, the first, should have an 'A' on it's line of description. If it doesnt, navigate through fdisk (it should be simple enough) and spot the 'set active partition' option. Guess which one you mark as active, champ? Guessed right, the first one, Your C: drive.

Now that ol trick will only work if you got a FAT / FAT32 partition. If you got a NTFS one, get rid of it. It's already formated and it'll save you trouble. (do that with the winXP cd, on the screen where you pick where to install windows)

Still not fixed?
Well, I still got one more thing up my sleeves.
It aint a regular trick though, and I cant explain too much why it may work, but when I had this problem (For other reasons though) thats what cured me.
Boot the comp, hop in the BIOS (usually the del key at the very beginning of the booting) and look for a way to change the acces mode of your hard drive disk.
This differs from motherboard to motherboard, so I can't tell you exactly where yours could be. But I can tell you where mine is:
Standard CMOS features -->
Your HDD -->
Access Mode;

Switch that to.... erm, gimme 10 min I'llcheck out what value it's on.
I'll edit in a bit.


EDIT: Mine had to be switched to LBA to stop producing that error.
Even thouhg it had ran for months before on the default 'any'
Won't go in the details of why it happened to me.

But, as the previous poster said, this _could_ also mean a mobo failure. If all this fails, I'd suggest you try your part's on someone else's computer. One at a time, to pin-point the faulty part(s)


EDIT 2: sorry for the typos. I have an excuse, it's 2 AM.

[gigabit]

Dude my frist 120mb seagate sata 150 HDD did the same thing .Seagate told me to rma it which i did and i had a new drive in under 8 days it came on the 7th day 1 week to the day i rma it .If maxtor is anything like seagate request an rma.

[Caviman2201]

It is starting to seem like this shouldn't be in the Video and Sound forum... I don't wanna get hit for double-posting if I post in another forum, but I think it's clear that my vid card isn't cooked... I think the problem now is mobo/hdd. Perhaps a mod would be willing to move it to where it might get better exposure to experts with this type of problem... and let me know of course where my thread got moved to... :)

thanx for all ur help guys, but I just don't think the problem is vid/sound anymore...

[consumer9000]

Sounds symptamatic of a southbridge chipset failiure...I just had a client with a system whos southbridge functions went to hell. Go figure, that's a rare issue but it happens nonetheless.

[gigabit]

never mind