PC won't recognize video card?
Answers:
Make sure you download and install the Vista drivers as the drivers on CD might install but are probably XP. Make sure card is firmly seated. Sometimes they seem seated but they're not! If you went from onboard video to a card go into bios ("delete" on startup) and disable onboard graphics.
Sometimes there is a switch on the motherboard that you have to turn off before the video card is seen.
Re check you connection
I believe the problem has been identifies in your question...VISTA
otherwise download the drivers and reseat the card. Also, make sure to entirely remove the old video drivers. Sometimes multiple drivers can cause problems.
Are you sure it didn't recognize the card? If there was an error, it would have been displayed.. However, to have the 2nd monitor visible, you need to do some additional checking.
On the control panel, run system, device manager, and check the displays, is it shown there?
On the desktop, right click on a blank area, select properties, settings, and see if you have two monitors in the graphic window. Use the "identify" button to see if the numbers "1" and "2" appear, "1" on the primary, "2" on the secondary.
To use a second monitor, you have to "enable" it in windows, either extending your desktop to the monitor (the best solution since it allows you to move application windows to the other monitor and use the main monitor for some other application) You can drag the monitor images in that little display so that if your extra monitor is on your left, and is 2, and it shows on the right in the little display, you can drag the 2 monitor to the left of the 1 so the orientation in windows matches the physical arrangement on your physical desktop.
The start-up BIOS routines scan memory addresses C000:0000 through C780:0000 to find video ROM. An error loading any adapter ROM generates an error such as:
XXXX ROM Error
It's looking for a signature "55 AA" which means "run this code" which initializes devices.
Try this:
Start/Run/CMD
Debug
d c000:0
Look for the signature, and following that some text identifying a display card mfg.
to get out of debug use the letter Q
Then type Exit to return to windows.
you can learn more about debug elsewhere, and scan for the occurrance of "55 AA" starting at c000:0000 to see how many bootable video adapter roms appear.
hope this helps (a little)
Jeff
One of these problems:
1. the card is not seated in the slot correctly
2. the card is fried RMA it
3. some cards need external power does yours? Read the Manual!
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