Posts by velvetnomad44

Timothy Kim60 said:What’s the deal with the zip file? Shouldn't the drivers straight from the official Nvidia site be ready to go for an instant install?

Look, when I try to go through step two—the automatic route—it keeps flagging me, saying I don't have the latest Java version installed. This is after I've already gone through the absolute nightmare of installing Java five separate times and trying that automatic installer five more times, only to have it fail every single time! So, I finally gave up and tried step one, the manual method. It finds my graphics card and offers me a package to download, but then—get this—I hit that exact same error message again.

Timothy Kim60 said:You really need to download Driver Sweeper. Once you’ve done a standard uninstallation of your drivers through the Control Panel, just fire up that program, check the boxes for both ATI and Nvidia display drivers, hit analyze, and then run the removal to wipe out every last trace of those leftover files. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble. I don't know what you're trying to get at here, but if this is some kind of test to see if I'm paying attention, consider me fully briefed. If there’s an actual point you're trying to make, quit stalling and lay it out clearly. I don't have all day to decipher cryptic one-word prompts. Get to the point.

Look, it’s really not that complicated. You just go straight to the official Nvidia website to grab the drivers—since Gainward is basically just a vendor for Nvidia anyway—and then you can just let the automatic detection tool handle the heavy lifting for you. Click.If you’re asking me which OS or specific series I would personally pick, that’s a whole different conversation—but if you want to know exactly which graphics card you're currently running, just pull up Speccy. It'll give you the full breakdown.

I’ve done everything by the book—completely wiped out the old drivers and everything—and Nvidia actually recognized the new card, but now I’m hitting a massive wall. Every single time I try to run the installer, it hangs at exactly 14% and throws a "7-Zip: Data Error" message right in my face. Are you kidding me? What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I'm seriously losing my mind here. Can anyone please walk me through this? 🙂

Timothy Kim60 said:The temperature is running higher, though it isn't at a level that will actually damage anything. As for that gray residue left on the copper, it shouldn't be an issue as long as there isn't any thick, crusty buildup you can physically feel with your finger; the texture looks fine to me. Honestly, if your room is sitting at 86°F and your case doesn't have decent airflow, those temps aren't even remotely surprising. You really need to check what your peak temperatures are while gaming—you can monitor that easily using MSI Afterburner or programs like PlayClaw 3, 4, or 5.

I’d suggest downloading Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). After you perform a standard uninstallation through the Control Panel, run that utility, check the boxes for both ATI and Nvidia display drivers, hit analyze, and then select remove to wipe every single trace of the old software. Alternatively, try this.

Always grab your drivers directly from the official Nvidia website (keep in mind Gainward is just a vendor for Nvidia), and they even have an automatic detection tool—just click here. Or, if you prefer to manually select your OS and specific series, you can find out exactly which card model you're rocking by using a program like Speccy.

might offer a little 🙂 help...
I installed the GPU, hooked up the power supply, but I'm getting absolutely no signal... I shut the PC down, switched over to integrated graphics, and ran Speccy, but it can't even detect the card there either.
The card itself seems to be working, and the fans are spinning to keep things cool...
What should I do?

Andrew Fox74 said:The motherboard has a PCIe slot, so it’ll work just fine! Just make sure you completely wipe out those old ATI drivers first, then install the Nvidia ones. You shouldn't run into any issues...

Best regards,

So, I just picked up a used graphics card—some Gainward model or something similar. $50
It has dual fans, which seems pretty solid to me. 🙂

Now, since I am a complete novice here, I need some guidance on how to actually get the drivers loaded for this thing. I'm assuming that once I physically seat the card in the slot, the system will automatically recognize the model and everything, but how exactly do I scrub the old drivers from the system and get the new ones installed properly?

Thanks for the help.

At this point, I honestly don't need anything else from this machine. As long as it doesn't freeze up while I'm trying to watch a movie or if I have a few Flash pages open at once, I'll be perfectly satisfied.

Chris Robinson25 said:It’s just not worth your money to sink it into this.

If you have any integrated graphics at all, stick with those instead. 😉

But look, if this specific card is $90, then maybe it'll actually work...

I’m asking for a little bit of help here, mostly because I’ll be the first to admit I’m no hardware genius when it comes to computer components...

So, I’ve got this aging desktop sitting here with the following specs:
ASUS 945GCM-S2 775/1333/667 MOTHERBOARD
INTEL PENTIUM CORE2DUO 2.4/800/2MB PROCESSOR
KINGMAX SUPER RAM 2GB DDR2 800
SEAGATE 250GB SATA2 7200rpm HARD DRIVE
And a VGA ATI RADEON X1550/256MB/128BIT GDDR2 graphics card.
My current GPU just kicked the bucket.

I mainly use this machine for web browsing, and now I’m planning to hook it up to my TV, so I need a new video card. I stumbled upon this one:

What I really want to know is: would this work for me without any hiccups? Since it's technically more powerful than my old one, will it fit properly in the same slots?