Installing new vid card, help!

[Firestormalpha]

Ok, basic details first. I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium on an HP Pavilion a6010n. 2.6 GHz dual core processor. at 1.8 GHz per core. 1GB of RAM.

I'm trying to install my brand new EVGA 01G-P3-1302-LR GeForce 8400 GS Video Card.

Placing the hardware into my computer was a piece of cake. Disabled (not uninstalled) integrated video drivers per many online directions. Installed hardware as stated above. Connected display device to card, turned on machine and nothing. Switched plug over to MB feed and got a signal, (but reduced quality as drivers were disabled)

Checked device manager, there was an error with the device. No drivers present for the card. so I installed the drivers from the cd that came with the device. Incidentally, the audio drivers for my MB output were wiped out in the process, and replaced with the vid cards audio drivers which redirect audio through the HDMI output.

Even after all that I couldn't get any feed through the VGA port. (I don't have HDMI or DVI connectors).

What do I need to do to fix this? Would rolling the computer back to a previous restore point fix the audio drivers? I don't see any way to change the video adapter setting from the integrated chipset to the vid card.

Please, any assistance would be awesome.

[Firestormalpha]

It is possible that I may have to un-install the nVidia HD audio drivers and then reload the original Realtek High Definition Audio Driver that came with the computer. The problem I'm having with that avenue of approach is finding said drivers. HP's website isn't all that helpful. There are driver updates, but I'm not sure they actually contain the entire driver or just a fix for the original. And if I try to run a search for "Realtek High Definition Audio Driver", I only get links to generic help pages. If anyone has a link to such drivers or suggestions as to a site where I can begin looking for myself, it would be most helpful.

[robertthebard]

Have you tried searching the discs that came with your computer, assuming you have any? Usually those files would be included on the System Restore disc/discs. I had the same problem with the drivers for my Audigy card, until I found the CD.

[Firestormalpha]

Had to make my discs. Not sure how things are organized on them. All I know is that the autorun tries to reset my computer to factory default. Which is kind of a last resort for me. The sound issue could have been avoided if I had just selected the custom install option and un-checked the nVidia audio drivers option, but I had to be lazy this time and trust the 'recommended" settings.

Still, it couldn't hurt to attempt some digging in the discs.

The only other option I can think of is the use system restore and jump back in time a notch. Except I have my doubts as to the effects on the drivers. Would that reset the drivers, or do pretty much nothing helpful?

[Granamere]

Try rolling back to the last restore point before you installed the drivers and it should work. Also go to Nvidia's website and download the video drivers from there. You will get the newest drivers and they should work for you better than what is on the disk.

Granamere

[Firestormalpha]

Just received a reply from EVGA's tech support. I'll give their advice a run and see what happens. Thanks for all the replies, they may yet prove useful.

Here is the reply from EVGA:

Some times this happens with HP computers and newer video cards. The fix for this will be to reboot and go into the BIOS, you can do this when you power on the system you will see text that says pres (whichever key your board states) to enter setup/CMOS setup/BIOS(again can be different from time to time). Once inside the BIOS you are going to navigate to your integrated to peripherals, sometimes under the advanced BIOS, when you are in there you will look to find an option that states On-Board AUDIO or On-Board SOUND. This will either be set to AUTO or DISABLED we will need to set it to ENABLED and then you should reboot and regain sound to the computer. For the video this will also be in the motherboards BIOS either under advanced bios or integrated peripherals. You will see something like Primary video adapter, or init display first something relating to the display. You will need to have that set to PCI-E and then plug the monitor into one of the ports on the card. If you need help navigating through the BIOS, we would recommend contacting the motherboard manufacture. If you have any further comments, questions, or concerns feel free to contact us.

And it did the job. I was thinking of looking into the BIOS, but I wasn't confident about what I would have to change and how.
Anyway, thanks for all the advice and input.

[Firestormalpha]

Anywho, my next issue is figuring out why KotOR will run for a little while then randomly crash out on me.

[robertthebard]

Two things you can try:

1st: Insure that you have the most recent drivers for your vid card, which does seem to be stating the obvious, but...

Second: Go through the configuration settings in KotoR, and see if it has a Detect button. Let it detect your hardware if so, and it will configure the game to best run in your system, in theory.

[Firestormalpha]

Just pulled the driver updates last night. Took two hours because I'm currently locked down to 14KB/s. But they're installed. I'll see if KotOR has a function like that in a little while. I'm not sure it does. Would turning things like anti-aliasing, and v-sync on or off affect the situation? I know typically the more things you have turned on the more resource intensive it can be.

On the splash screen the only option I see is to analyze my computer. it just runs some preliminary tests to see if your computer is compatible with the game. The only test that my computer fails is the partition in my HDD. C drive checks out, but the D drive is the partition with system restore files, so it's very small. But everything else is given a pass.

Well, hopefully the driver updates fix the issue. If not I may have to play with the settings in game for awhile before I get it right.

Oblivion seems to work just fine though, so far.

[Firestormalpha]

retweaked a few settings and it seems to be running smoother. Although I've noticed that the crashes seemed to occur mostly when a large series of explosions occurred. Consequently this made getting through the intro a bit a of a pain.