Video Card Help!!!

Hi,

 

I know you said you followed the installation instructions from another post, but just to double check some of the fundamentals:

1)  Did you go into the BIOS menu and check the Primary video controller setting is set to AUTO ?

2)  Did you go into the Device Manager and set your Intel video controller device to be Diabled ?

3)  Did you make sure your monitor is plugged into the new video card port, not the old video port?

 

Kevin

I plugged cable back into the old port and left the video card in the pci slot. Same thing no monitor. Then I took out the video card and it worked like normal.

Yes on all 3...

Black the whole time during startup.

Okay, so at least that verifies that the BIOS is detecting when the card is plugged in the PCI slot, and is automatically trying to route the video signal through the card at that point.  

 

That's strange that you can't see anything during the initial startup (prior to Windows loading).  Usually, even when you have no nvidia drivers installed yet, you can see crude video from the "default" VGA driver in the beginning.

 

I wonder if there is a problem with the card itself.  Can I ask what manufacturer brand it is? 

Because there have been cases documented (in this forum) where some "no-name" / overseas manufactured cards fail to work at all, no matter what is tried.

 

 

Interesting, so you would not even be able to view your BIOS on startup, that's strange...

 

As a test, you may want to try plugging your monitor back into the old integrated video port, just to verify that the video signal is not still being output to that port (for whatever reason).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is your monitor black the whole time during startup, or does it just go black when after Windows loads up?

It doesn't say anywhere on the card other than it was made in China. On the instruction sheet it does have instructions to install ATI Software. (If that means it was made by ATI?) I did buy it over the internet from Image Store US

Nvidia GeForce Series FX 5500 128MB DDR PCI Card

I think they provided the wrong instruction sheet,  ATI software would not be used for a card which has an Nvidia GPU.   I am thinking now that you may have one of those no-name Chinese cards that is incompatible with the Dimension computer.  You may want to try to return the card, and go with a more established company such as BFG or 3D Fusion, which have a good track record of compatibility with our computer.  You can find very reasonably priced FX5500 PCI cards made by those companies.

 

Sorry, I can't think of anything else right now for you to try...  Good luck!

 

Just so you know, the company Nvidia does not manufacture the graphic card itself, it only manufactures the GPU chips that sit on the card.  Other companies, such as BFG, 3D Fuzion, PNY, XFX, etc., will buy the GPU chips and mount them on the card and sell the cards.

 

Can you verify what the actual company's name is that made the card?  If not, it is possible that you may have one of those no-name cards that have been known to be problematic in the Dimension 2400 computers.  Did you buy your card in a store, or over the internet ?

Thanks for your time and efforts...

Hi again.  I just noticed that you stated you bought the card from Image Store.  There have definitely  been problems with people buying FX5500 PCI cards from that company, where the cards were not compatible in the 2400.   See the following post from this forum:   http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_video&message.id=112689&query.id=298777#M112689

 

I know that the particular card which people had trouble with (from Image Store) came in a pink box, which had a picture of a female warrior holding a sword on the box.  Not sure if you've got the same.

 

Sorry for your bad luck,  I know that it is very frusterating to find out that the Dimension 2400 computer can sometimes be very picky with the manufacturer of the PCI card.  Some people have said that the problem may be related to the voltage spec of the card.

 

Hope you can get it all resolved.

 

Kevin