# ATI Graphics card not detected help please



## hrmjay (Mar 21, 2009)

Hi,

I have an older machine and recently my nVidia graphics card packed up. I replaced it with an ATI card - ATI Radeon HD2600 1Gb DDR2 AGP. The problem is that the card is not detected at startup nor in Windows so i'm stuck with minimum graphics at the moment. The card fan starts and basic graphics are there but the card itself is not detected as an ATI blah blah etc, neither is the 1GB on the card detected and displayed at startup.

Machine specs:

OS: Windows Vista SP1
Mobo: Gigabyte GA 7VT880
Ram: 3GB
HD: 4 Maxtor 160Gb drives - 2 sata 2 IDE
PSU: Generic brand 450W 20amps on the 12v

Checked if the mobo can support the g/card - No answer
Tried to find the power requirement of the card itself because I saw that some cards need 26 amps, my psu has 20 rated.

I would greatly appreciate if someone can help me on this. Basically if I can get the card detected at start up then obviously Vista will pick up on it. I've checked various forums and sites but have no answers.

Please please help me as I am kinda desperate now.

Thanks in advance.

Hi All,

An update

I changed the power supply cos i thought there wasn't enough power on the 12v with the old one (Only 20amps). The new PSU is a 750w Corsair with 60amps on the 12v.

After installing the psu i refitted the card - still not detected at post and windows lists it as a Standard VGA adapter but Lavalys Everest detects the card without issue as well as GPU-Z so i'm not sure whats going on now.

Next thing I did was to downloaad and install Catalyst Control Centre without any difference. I also found a site describing a "No hardware found" fix for this card, downloaded that as well and during the installation it asked whether to install the ATI driver - selected yes obviously. On restart windows wouldn't start, just went into a restart loop, at least thats something.

The mistake I made was that I installed catalyst without cleaning out any previous drivers. I'm gonna try that today and reinstall Catalyst.

Any suggestions - my worry is that BIOS does not pick up the card at POST.Are there Bios/cards that don't cycle through the graphics card memory at POST? My old Geforce used to do that.


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## sonac (Sep 23, 2008)

Since you are talking about power supply, I assume you have connected a power cable to your video card.
If I was you, I would first do a complete-proper uninstallation of your video drivers, like you can see HERE.
Then download the latest Vista ATI drivers and do a fresh install. Report back if you don't solve it and we'll try to think of something else.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Your motherboard supports 4x/8x cards so as long as the HD2600 it should work, if your not seeing anything on boot before windows loads then it is not a driver problem.
Are you using a VGA or DVI monitor?
Have you tried both video ports on the card? 
Do you have the 6 pin auxiliary power plugged into the card?


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

The agp versions of this card are known for not working 40% of the time. It's basically due to the motherboard being to old or not supporting it.


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## hrmjay (Mar 21, 2009)

Hi

I tried both the DVI and VGA ports. As I mentioned in my original post, I have a signal going to the monitor. Its just that the card does not get recognised at POST and Vista doesn't recognise it either - Vista lists it as a Standard VGA adaptor. 

In response to wrench97 - the card doesn't have a 6 pin auxilliary power; it has a 4 pin connector like the old floppy drives used to have - this is connected.

I was worried that the card itself may be fried but after Vista starts Everest and GPU-Z can read the card info such as Make, Model, GPU speed, Gpu memory etc. If the mobo doesn't support the card would these applications be able to detect this info?

Anyway still haven't done the completely clean install - seriously pressed for time. Will do that and post back with the results.

Thanks a million for the replies. Much appreciated.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Can you enter the Bios using the card, in outher words is there readable output on the screen when in the Bios and before windows loads?


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## hrmjay (Mar 21, 2009)

Hi,

Another update.

Booted Vista in safe mode, uninstalled the existing graphics driver in device manager, cleaned out all references to graphics drivers (both nvidia and ATI) using Driver Sweeper then shut down the machine and removed and refitted the card.

On restart BIOS still didn't pick up the card but when Vista loaded in device manager the Graphics adapter showed up as it should - ATI Radeon HD2600 but with the yellow question mark. The details showed as "Windows could not install driver blah blah Error code 19".

Everest and GPU-Z still register with the full card details as before. I restarted again, this time in device manager the card is listed but no yellow question mark but no resolution options either. So I updated drivers and it successfully updated to the most recent version issued on 23.03.2009. Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the version number. Didn't install Catalyst either. On restart it gets to the vista startup (the green bar) and then reboots again into a never ending cycle. I let it cycle about 6 times. Finally started in safe mode and did everything again, on restart it went back to the Standard Graphics Adaptor situation.

Sorry for the long post but better to have all the details, I figured.

Any help?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Are you hooking the monitor up to the card?
Your saying the bios doesn't recognize the card if you have the monitor hooked to it and can get into the Bios, I not understanding why your saying that?


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## hrmjay (Mar 21, 2009)

Hi,

With my old nVidia card as soon as I start the machine the 1st thing that appears on screen is the graphics card details "Geforce fx5700" and the gpu memory. This does not happen with the ATI card. Thats what I meant by not recognised by BIOS, probably my terminology was wrong.

The ATI card does not do this. Anyway I don't mind if this does not appear when the machine is started (I can live with that). What I need is for Vista to recognise the ATI card with the proper drivers. As i mentioned this happened once but with the ATI drivers installed windows will not start. Simply keeps rebooting.

I think I can get Vista to recognise the card again but what can I do about the reboot problem when the correct driver is installed?

Any suggestions?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Most newer cards do not appear on the splash screen.
Give the Omega drivers a try> http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati.php


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## hrmjay (Mar 21, 2009)

Hi All

Problem solved. I installed the XP drivers and the card worked although I was running Vista so no aero etc. 

Latest info is that I abandoned Vista and moved onto Windows 7. The OS is amazing, sort of like Vista skinned Ubuntu in terms of performance. Anyway, the new OS detected the ATI card and applied the correct WDDM driver at install, got all the bells & whistles working as well.

Thanks for all the help and input. Much appreciated.


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