Gateway w/Vista won't recognize video card

Yeah, here we go....

Went over there today. First, checked the BIOS settings. There is a setting for which video to use first, but it was already set to the PCIEx slot. It's also set to load the on-board GPU only if there is no external GPU. But Windows still doesn't detect the new video card.

Downloaded and updated the drivers for the on-board video. Vista still didn't see the new card. Ran the installation of drivers for the new card from the CD -- still nothing.

I'm operating under the assumption that it's not a bad PCIExpress slot, because if it is then there's nothing I can do. So I have to pursue all other remaining possibilities.

I'm going to do research on Vista's services, to see which ones might cause this problem if they were turned off. Then I will go see if those services are, in fact, turned off or not. That's pretty much the only other thing I can think of to do.

Does anyone have any other suggestions???
 
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Well, I'm sad to say, it has to be a bad pci-e slot. If the card is not outputting standard bios messages when you turn on the computer, then it has nothing to do with windows or any operating system. That means the card isn't getting voltage/signal/messages from the motherboard itself when the hardware is initialized. :(

I suppose though if you haven't tried resetting the bios/cmos, that could be your last hope.
 
I'm assuming you mean I should read the BIOS messages on bootup and see if one refers to the installed video card, right? Haven't done that. Actually, I think the boot messages are turned off, but there's a way to display them. I'll try that next chance I get. You're right, if it doesn't display a message indicating the presence of the card, then that would point to a bad PCI-E slot. I'm really doubting that's the case, though. It would be very unusual.
 
What I meant by outputting bios messages was simply displaying anything when you turn the computer on. The stuff you see way before the operating system is even loaded, such as the bios loading screen, the big motherboard/gateway logo thing, etc. If the slot was working, the card would be outputting it. It doesn't matter what you do in windows, the card is not being seen way before the operating system is even touched. motherbords have really random component failures, it's happened to me :(
 
Yeah, I thought that's what you meant. Like I said, BIOS boot messages are currently turned off. The only thing it displays is which keys to press to enter BIOS or to display the startup messages. So I haven't seen any indication about the card because of that. Next time I go over there, I'll turn on the startup messages and see if BIOS is detecting the presence of the card. Good call.

Assuming that BIOS does see the card, pretty much the only thing left is to see if some Windows services are turned off that are preventing Windows from seeing the card. Most likely culprit are the Plug-and-Play services, I think. I'll have to check that too.
 
But what I mean is - is it displaying those instructions on the output of the video card? or does the video cards output stay completely black when you power the computer on?
 
Well if that's the case, then the operating system is not involved at all. the motherboard is not successfully getting power/signal to the card
 
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