PCI Express slot not responding to Hardware - Help please!

I have an Optiplex GX620, which has run wonderfully for 2 years with no problems. I upgraded to PowerColor's HD 2400 256mb PCI Express card a few months ago, again with no problems. As I was carefully dinking about in my case yesterday, (with the computer on), I apparently touched something, and the display suddenly gave-out; the touch was as delicate as is imaginable.

Thinking I had fried the card, I tried to install the old PEG which was working just fine when I made the upgrade, and it didn't work either. I should note that with either of these cards, the computer makes its start-up as usual, as I can tell from the sounds of the boot sequence. There is no other indication that anything is wrong, and that's with the card in, and the monitor plugged-in.

I have a lot of experience installing and upgrading hardware, but no real practical experience troubleshooting the motherboard or figuring-out where to look to diagnose a problem like this.

I wonder, is the PEG slot fried? Why is the computer operating without a problem with this condition? Is there a default setting in BIOS that took-over and disabled the slot? Is this fixable?

In BIOS, it doesn't give any indication that there is anything wrong with the slot either. The PCI menu shows all of the slots, and the PEG is simply labeled empty.

Also, if there is no way to fix the slot, can anyone recommend a good PCI gaming card for under $200?

Any help with this is greatly appreciated! Thank you, in advance.

~P_L

What motherboard are you using?

Have you tried to clear the CMOS?

I'm not sure how to clear CMOS, and I'm not sure how to determine the motherboard.

I'm new to troubleshooting the motherboard, but I'm a quick learner. If you can tell me where (in the device manager?) to determine the motherboard type (it's made by Dell), and how to clear the CMOS, I'll do it in a flash.

Thank you so much for your help!

unplug the wall power connector and look for this battery on your motherboard:



take out the battery for about 30 seconds then put it back in. this will reset the mobo.

Aha... I saw that when I was looking for the motherboard type, and thought, I wonder if this needs to be replaced/fiddled.

I'll try it right now. Again, Thank you very much!

Well, I took out the battery for at least 30 seconds, replaced the PCI Express card, and rebooted: same problem, no display. Things seem to be running much smoother in general however!

Will it hurt anything to have both video cards (my PEG and my PCI), installed at the same time? Now, I'm switching between analog on the PCI card and digital on the PEG card. Is it safe to have both digital and analog connections hooked-up to the monitor, and installed on the motherboard? I'm thinking that at least then I'll have some display to continue troubleshooting.

Vigilantly,
push_latency

can you tell if the card is getting any power? is the fan on the card running?

As far as I remember, no, but I'm going to check that right now. Switching over to my linux box for display!

After checking, it's clear that the card IS getting power, and fan IS working.

I should note that the card I used before the PEG 256mb was also a PEG card. Neither of them give a display now, though I know the older one worked when I took it out.

Well I answered my own question about having two video cards installed at the same time: the analog card works while the non-responsive digital card is also installed.

I'm still not able to get the digital card to work. Any other ideas? Thanks again to everyone for helping me with this!

It might be your DVI cable. Do you have any other ones laying around that you could use?

I've tried two brand new cables, with the hopes that it was something so easy. No Luck. Thanks though!

):

New development:

After resetting CMOS again, a wizard window appeared on the next restart. It read "Found New Hardware", and wanted to install the "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)" for the Express Chipset Family. It gave the number 82945G.

I clicked yes, it searched automatically, and it indicated that it was successful. I tried to re-install the PEG card, and it still didn't work.

Later, it popped up the same wizard again, I did the same thing, and it indicated that it was not successful.

I hope this is the missing link to solving this!

Thanks in advance for your thoughts...

Another Development:

Keeping my regular PCI card in and connected to my monitor, I put my PEG card in, and did not hook it up. I booted to BIOS, and under the Video heading, it does actually Read the PEG, noting that there is a VGA compatible card in it.

I use a digital cable, and a LCD monitor. Should I be trying to fix my monitor?

Any/all help with this is extremely appreciated. As you can see by my posts, I've been dealing with this since November. Thanks, in advance.

Hey mate, i had the same problem , i replaced my PSU and bingo, card worked fine, Cheers .