Computer not seeing GTX 460 graphics card

[gloom1st]

Ok got a new PC from here about 3 months ago, will post spec below and until last thursday was really happy. Came home thursday night switched on PC and it booted ok loaded windows ok but then came up with weird screen res (800x600). Went to change res back and then came across problem. Instead of graphics card showing as GTX460 is showing as Standard VGA adapter.

Ok so first thought was problem with graphics drivers. To cut story sort tried everything i could think of, tried unstalling drivers and loading new drivers (got error message card not suported). even opened up case to make sure card not lose or powerlead was lose. All looked ok.

Rung up PCspecialists Friday morning and had long chat, they talked me though trying to reinstall drivers ve device manager but no joy.

Should say was going away for long weekend so was short on time, anyway was left that only thing they could surgest was to try reformating machine and if that did not work to send it back.

So got home on Monday ready to have to face upto backing everything up etc and then reformatting machine. Guess what switched on machine and everything worked. GTX 460 showed up on system and all worked. Rung up PCspecialists to update them and hoped that was that. I also had yesterday off so was playing on machine all day without problem.

Now come home from work and guess what machine not seeing graphics card again. Course got home after helpline closed so can't ring um till tomorrow after work.

Now i don't know what to do, to be honest was always unhappy about idea of having to reformat machine and am thinking it's got to be fault with card. If problems were with graphic drivers would think it would just not work. Not keep working & then not working. Anyone got any ideas. I'm stumped.

Thanks Nick.

Spec below:-

Case COOLERMASTER HAF 912 PLUS MID TOWER GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) HD graphics

Motherboard ASUS® P8P67 PRO (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0/SATA 6Gb/s, cossFireX™ & SLI

Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)

Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 460 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)


1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW


Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Change to: 800W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD


Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

 

[gloom1st]

Ok not to happy, just rung up support line and they still saying I need to reformat machine before they will take it back to look at it. Which I am unable to do till the weekend. Don't Finnish work till about 7pm and by time I get home won't be in mood to do it. Which means got to wait till Monday now till they expect it's a hardware fault and allow me to return it till them.

What do others think, could it be a problems with windows software. I just don't know as would ever work or not work I would have thought. Not seen card one day and not the next. Paid for 3 year warranty for peace of mind and feel like I'm being mucked about. I bought computer from here as don't know how to build um extra myself, so was not expecting support to try and get me to do it all for them.

 

[Gorman]

It does sound like a dodgy driver update. I guarantee you that the first thing that will happen if it does come back is a reinstall, which will probably fix it, and you will be without the machine for the week or so it takes to get back and forth.

For the sake of an hour or so reinstalling its usually in the customers best interest to try this before its returned.

Sorry to hear you feel you are being mucked about.

 

[gloom1st]

Thanks for your swift reply. Problem is when it first happened on Thursday before that date I had not install any new drivers for graphics card since it was delivered. It had worked fine for 3 months and the machine still works fine apart from it won't see the graphics card. On Thursday night I tried to install the most upto date drivers and got error message that could not find a supported card. Even disabled graphics card ve device manager and when rebooted went straight into VGA card mode. So just feel it's a hardware problem and h say if I send it back and u do a reformat and it works u will just return it. However it would have been sent back tomorrow so would be I'm the pipe line where as now will try and reformat machine. Which I not happy about as never done it with windows 7 and sata drives so not sure what to do and if it don't work will then have to wait till at least next Tuesday before u can pick it up. So will be left longer waiting for machine to be fixed. Sorry but I'm not a hardware or software person and don't feel comfatable doing this which is why I took out the warranty.

 

[Rakk]

Problem is when it first happened on Thursday before that date I had not install any new drivers for graphics card since it was delivered.

It's possible a windows update did it.

PCS are just trying to make sure the PC is away from you for as little time as possible, and if you have problems reinstalling, then give PCS a call and I'm sure they will step through the process with you on saturday morning.

 

[gloom1st]

Thanks for that to be honest had not even thought of it being an windows update. See said I'm not a software person. Ok guess it looks like trying a reformat. Last time I did one was about 4 years ago with XP. Wish me luck, do u still have to install drivers for hardisk, LAN card etc or does win7 do all that for u. No idea if will need to change bios settings etc. If I hear a loud scream from Bristol Saturday morning u will know where it came from.

 

[Gorman]

Thanks for that to be honest had not even thought of it being an windows update. See said I'm not a software person. Ok guess it looks like trying a reformat. Last time I did one was about 4 years ago with XP. Wish me luck, do u still have to install drivers for hardisk, LAN card etc or does win7 do all that for u. No idea if will need to change bios settings etc. If I hear a loud scream from Bristol Saturday morning u will know where it came from.

Windows 7 will take care of most of the drivers, once its back on desktop just pop what driver disks you have in and run them. May want to go to nvidias website for the latest graphics drivers rather than use the outdated cd.

It is highly likely the card will come up as standard vga before you do this, or run windows update.

 

[vanthus]

If it's any help to you,full instructions on doing a clean install are given in the welcome booklet.
If you don't have the booklet you can download it from "download drivers"when you enter "customer section".
make sure you backup any data you want if you haven't already made a backup.

 

[gloom1st]

Thanks for all the advice not even open my windows 7 disk box so will check for booklet tonight. I have been making backups on external hardisk since got new machine. I do have one question when I do backup ve "windows backup software" I do backup of all my files etc (word docs, pics) but backup also does a system image. Now when I have reformatted machine and I goto copy of my backed up files. Should I do the system image restore as I'm thinking if it is a windows problem by doing image restore will I just copy the corrupted files back onto machine from external drive. Sorry to be a pain. Nick

Also I would like to say I am happy with the surpport I got over phone. Just worried I going to be doing all this and won't work and will then have to send machine back and will have to wait even longer.

 

[vanthus]

No,dont do a system image restore,this would probably just keep the problem.

 

[gloom1st]

Thanks, that's what I thought

 

[gloom1st]

Ok come home from work, switched on machine and now it's finding graphics card again. I don't know what to do, can anyone think of any tests i can run to see if i can find out what the problem is.

Confused of Bristol

 

[Rakk]

I'd still go for the reinstall, since you said that this had happened before but sometime later it lost it again.

 

[gloom1st]

Yeap think you are right, not going to reinstall tonight had long hard day at least i can now play WOW for couple of hours and relax, then do reinstall over weekend.

Cheers all

 

[gloom1st]

Ok very upset now, have now done full reformat of computer and fresh install of Windows 7 and guess what computer will still not see my graphics card. So it looks like it's a hardware fault. Which i thought it was all along.

Now 15:18 on Saturday so can't contact surport till Monday morning to try and get them to take machine back to repair WHICH is what i wanted in the first place. So earlist they will now be able to pick up machine is Tuesday but may be Wednesday as don't think anyone will be in the house on Tuesday. So will then take at least week to fix it. If they had allowed me to send it back in the first place when i first contacted them on Thursday the 29th July i could have had it back by now running as it should do.

Sorry for rant but am really upset. This is second computer i bought from them and i have to say i never had any problems with my first one and infact still going strong at my sisters even know its over 3 years old. So bought this new one from them for peace of mind and even paid for the 3 year warrenty and feel really let down by their tech support.

Worst thing is will have to ring um from work on Monday so won't be able to talk proper over phone and i know they going to try and say it's something i done wrong with installing Windows back on system. Which is not fair as i not sure how to do and should never have been asked to do it in the first place. If your brand new car breaks down and your ring up the garage, u don't expect them to say well hang on could be the spark plugs try changing them before you bring the car in. Thats what you pay a warrenty for.

Better stop now. Just want a working computer is that, that much to ask for?

 

[gloom1st]

Ok heres an update, after sending the above post i turned off computer and uplugged it from the wall. Left it 20 mins and booted back up and guess what.

I went into device manager which still showed card as standard VGA but tried to update the drivers and it worked. Drivers were updated and machine saw my card
in the machine. However i then had to reboot so card would run "message in windows" which i did and after reboot, machine no longer sees my card again and just sees a standard VGA card again. Tried to do update drivers in device manager again but no joy! This makes me think its got to be a hardware fault somewhere or do people still think it might be a software fault.

I;m going to cry now and just go away.

 

[PokerFace]

I'm presuming that when you spoke with support that they asked you to check if the graphics card was fully seated and had not become slightly dislodged during transit and to check all cable connections are fully inserted.

 

[gloom1st]

I did all that before I rung I'm the first time.

 

[gloom1st]

Sorry Pokerface did not mean to be rude or short reply, sent last message from my iphone as computer was turned off. Ok have now just turned computer on again after switching it off again ve the plug in the wall
and computer has booted up and the computer is seeing and running the graphics card again. So really don't know what to think. Just not to switch off computer again till i have too.

 

[vanthus]

You have done what they asked you to do,reinstall OS & still have the same problem,so almost certainly a hardware problem,possibly a dodgy GPU.but it could be something else.
I know how frustrating this can be.
get in touch with PCS again & arrange an RMA (or they might make another suggestion), believe me, they will sort it out.I can't see them blaming you for not reinstalling correctly.