Vista - My GeForce 7900GS will not work with Vista, Please help

I'm in desperate need of help.

I bought a new hard drive and did a clean install of windows vista on it.

The installation went fine and everything is running fine, except I have to unplug my graphics card and use the standard VGA built in standard thing which obviously is no good.

I've downloaded several drivers. When I try install them it gives an error relating to not having the correct hardware avaialble for the driver or something like that.

On my old XP setup I had a small X icon in the system tray which was the xpertvision menu/program - which allowed me to change stuff like the fan speed, resolution etc.

This isn't installed obviously, and seen as when I bought this graphics card last year the only drivers on the disk were for XP/2000.

I can only run vista using the graphics card when I start windows in safe mode - when I run it in normal mode I just get a blank black screen after the loading screen.

Can you advise me of a solution - or advise me if there IS any solution at all.

Windows Vista 32-Bit
geforce 7900GS 512MB
2GB RAM
Intel Pentium D processor 2.8GHtz
22 " Samsung Monitor

Thanks,
Mike

Did you download these drivers?

ForceWare Release 169

I got the error message relating to my current hardware setup when I tried to install.

The only time it doesn't throw up that error is when I have the graphics card plugged in - and the only time that happens is when I am in safe mode as it doesn't work at any other time.

Hi Mikey,

Go here and get the right drivers for your Graphics card...NVIDIA Driver Downloads - Automatically Detect NVIDIA Products

Version Release Date
GeForce Release 175.16 Vista 32bit WHQL 175.16 May 13, 2008


Steven

OK here is what happens.

I am running in normal mode using my VGA on board graphics. I try and install those dirvers but it doesn't work as I don't have my graphics card plugged in at the time.

Therefore to install these drivers I will need to be using my graphics card to power my display. So I reboot, but of course the only way I can use my PC with my graphics card plugged in is when I'm in safe mode.

So I start in safe mode and install the drivers. They install without any problems and I am told I need to restart my PC.

I do so, and when windows runs in normal mode I get a black screen after the "Microsoft Corporation" loading screen. I know windows has started as I can hear the startup/login windows tunes in the background.

What on earth am I supposed to do now? I don't want to have to buy anything else like a new card or have to downgrade to XP.

Please advise.

ok 1st un-install the graphics driver for the vga
shut-down the pc
plug in the g-card
boot up and go into BIOS, in the bios menu somewhere will be an option to disable the on-board VGA
disable it, then save and quit
now hopefully windows should boot
will will most likely find that the desktop is large and cluttered
now provided you get this far and you can see the screen you will now have to options
1 use the drivers that windows update will provide you with or 2 install the drivers that you have downloaded
you should then be prompted to reboot
once you have fully booted you should see what to be an almost normal desktop
all you should have left now is to tweak you settings to get you screen how you like it
i hope this helps you

good luck

OK i'll give it a go.

How do I uninstall VGA drivers?
Where abouts in BIOS will I locate the option to disable the on board VGA.
Up until now windows has shown a blank screen when I load up vista. Why will it be different this time?

Thanks.

ok you can un-install the drivers threw device manager or ad and remove programs if its listed

each BIOS is different so i really cant tell you.... in 1 of the menus you should see something along the lines of on-board graphics/VGA :enabled just change it to disabled

you should see something similar to this


it will/should be different this time because there will only be 1 card booting up and no driver conflict

Thanks for the quick reply.

It didn't work. I got confronted with the usual black screen again

I have no idea what to try now

i see this card requires supplementary power
this might sound a little stupid but a lot of people do forget to connect the supplementary sower supply
make sure it is connected/correctly
i.e if it has 2 dims to joining into 1 then be sure that there are 2 power dims connected not just 1
also even though the card might look like its in the correct position it could also be that it isn't quite sat right in the pci slot.... be sure to press quite firmly and evenly to be sure it is fitted correctly