Hopefully someone can help me on a bit of a problem I am having.  I wanted to upgrade my graphics card (was a NVIDIA 8500) so I purchased a NVIDIA 200 GTS to replace it.  I needed to buy a new power supply to support the new card (needed an output of 500W, old one was 350W).

I bought the new power supply and installed it.  That went okay, the supply worked fine with my old video card and everything seemed to be in order.  I received my new card (the 200 GTS) yesterday and stuck it in the slot my old card was in and now I have major issues.

My PC will not boot up and when turned on a beeping error plays.  The error seems to be one short beep followed by one long beep, pause, short beep, long beep, pause and so on.

I couldn’t figure out what I had done wrong so I took the new card out and put the old one back in but it still does the same error.  It seems like it doesn’t recognize either card at all.

I am hoping I didn’t screw up my pc beyond all hope.

My PC is a HP m9150f.  I unfortunately can’t give you complete specs because I can’t boot the computer up but here’s what little I do remember;

Windows Vista Premium

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz, 2400 Mhz, 4 core(s), 4 logical processors

RAM: 3GB

NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 256 MB (old now)

Sorry, I know that’s not much.

Any help would be much appreciated.  Thanks so much!

Did you plug a cable from the PSU to the GPU? That's required with some newer cards at least. You should also check the everything else in the computer is locked to their slots.

Well the 200 GTS does need the 6 plug from the PSU to the GPU and that was hooked up when I first put the new card in.  The old 8500 though doesn't need any extra connections and neither work.  As far as I can tell everything is locked in but I will double check, it would be awesome if my problem was just because of a loose connection.

EDIT:  Okay so I checked HP's site and apparently my beep code (1 short, 1 long) is a "Memory Problem"...  I'm hoping that this just means I bumped one of the memory modules when I was putting in the graphics card because if I somehow blew my memory that is going to suck...when I get home I will pull everything out and put it back in and see how it goes.

followed by one long beep, pause, short beep, long beep, pause and so on.

What do you mean "and so on?" Does the beeping repeat? Is there more to it? Are you sure that is an accurate description of the sequence? This is important.

Oh, ok, you seem to have resolved it yourself or at least found out what the beep code is.

What do you mean "and so on?" Does the beeping repeat? Is there more to it? Are you sure that is an accurate description of the sequence? This is important...

1 short, 1 long, pause (repeat).

Can you get to your bios?

yeah my computer does this when i start it without hooking up the power to the video card, when my ram is out it refuses to start. crack it open and check all your connections!

it does sound like when the power wasn't on my hd4850

but at least when i started it there was a creepy red message on my screen saying

PLUG THE POWER INTO THE CARD

Thanks kindly, it was a connection thing, one of my RAM modules was loose.

BUT I have a new issue now, still graphics card related.

I fixed that up and now no more beeps and the PC starts now but my monitor still doesn't recognize any of the grapics cards.  Once again I thought it might have only been the new one but neither work.  They dont seem to send out a signal.  I've double checked the monitor and the monitor cords and they work fine on other computers so I know its got to be related to my PC somehow.

It sounds like my PC is booting up fine now, and all the fans (including the graphics card fan) seem to be working fine but there's just no signal.  I dont see any other wires or anything that should be connected to the cards so I'm just confused now.

Ive removed and replaced both cards several times now so I'm pretty sure (unless Im doing something really wrong) it's not a connection issue.

Any suggestions now?

EDIT:  It also strikes me that I didn't give you the proper NEW video card model.  It is a NVIDIA 250 GTS.

EDIT 2: okay so I tried to see if I could get the monitor to work with the integrated graphics but that didn't work either.  I did see though that whenever I plug the VGA or HDMI cord into one of the slots (either integrated or the card) the monitor does come out of standby for like 5 seconds just to say it's going back into standby as it can't get a signal but it does this every time it's plugged in.  Does this help anyone?

try turning your screen on before the rest of your computer, and if that doesn't work try turning it on after the rest of your computer. it sounds zany, but if i had my screen on before the computer it would display garbage. i was using the secondary VGA output for my primary display though, rather than the HDMI output, so this undoubtedly had an influence, but it's worth a shot.

well it is GeForce GTS 250

that is your problem there lolololol, I had one, and it sucked so hard. I upgraded to two gtx 295's but anyway.


if you have no video something is probably not passing bios, you could try resetting your bios. (pop little lithium battery out, and put it back in.)

the card could be faulty oob, call the manufacturer

if you have no video something is probably not passing bios, you could try resetting your bios. (pop little lithium battery out, and put it back in.)

I'll elaborate on this


You can safely take it out if you disconnect the power to the computer. The BIOS saves settings like the time and stuff on a little memory chip that this battery powers. When you pop it out, it forgets all those settings and sets it back to default. You can just put it back in after you take it out. You'll have to reset the time but it's of little consequence if it fixes your problem.

There is no need to remove the battery. There is a jumper for the BIOS. If you move this jumper to the 'on' position it will reset the BIOS to default. Make sure you move it back before you try to start up your computer (it won't damage anything, the computer just won't POST and I've done that before--left it on and started getting pissed because I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it).

There is info for the procedure at the bottom: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01324212#N1505

EDIT:

Here is what I suggest. Remove the current video card and reset the BIOS. I'm hoping this will let your computer boot with the integrated GPU. If it does, go to Nvidia's site and install the GTS200 drivers. Now shut the computer down and try installing your new card again.

So last night I was trying various things (including removing the battery to reset the bios) and then I started the PC up again and noticed it didn't seem to be posting (oh shit...).

At this point knowing I've screwed things up incredibly badly somehow and should never had attempted to change hardware in general I decided to take it into a tech (Futureshop!) who called me back later that night to tell me the motherboard is "defective" (lol I think he was trying to be nice rather than just telling me I am dumb...).  Being that he works for a place that sells computers he recommended I buy a whole new computer and the he would transfer my new card and PSU over to it.

I checked online for prices for something with a Quad Core (I don't want to downgrade) and was unhappy to find they were quite expensive so then I decided just to buy a replacement motherboard off of e-bay (same motherboard that came with the orig PC Asus IPIBL-LB) and get him to install it along with all the other garbage and hopefully all goes well with that.

I was looking online though just reading up about motherboard failure and I read (potentially wrong information on a message board) that it was generally the processor that goes and not the motherboard but it causes the same symptoms.  Is that true?  I'm going to be pissed if I get him to replace the motherboard and it still doesn't work...

I have seen far more motherboard problems than CPU issues. I don't know why he's saying it's 'defective' if it was working fine before, unless he actually found some problems. I'm pretty sure that is a huge scam, though.

"Hurr.. buy new computer???"

It will be interesting to see what happens if they replace the motherboard and there are still issues.

That's a busted power supply. You were probably better with your older one in all honesty I think.

Good luck. =) My friend had a busted power supply not so long ago...


Don't get a new motherboard if your thinking about that. Just get a new computer. Load a cheap one up with a good graphics card and a good amount of ram I'd say for now. Sell your computer for parts if it need be. Also, make sure you don't sell your hd if you have important stuff on it. It seems obvious but I've done it before by accident. x_x

Hey, thought I would update this in case anyone cares.

So I got the replacement motherboard in and had the tech's replace it and now everything is working great.

The only issue I have now is that the 2 USB ports on the front of my PC don't seem to work anymore and they worked prior to sending it into get fixed... (lol)

I've just decided to leave that as is though since I can just use the ones on the back.

It's probably just the connector for the case.

you don't let woman, or you don't let women? wooohaaaa