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Howdy ho!
Just bought a PCI-E gfx card for my asus k8v-vm Motherboard. I`m using it now so i know its fitted properly at least.
I cant find a driver that will install. The one on the CD that came with it doesnt work and gives me the same error as the downloaded versions i`ve attempted.

"the nvidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware"

I`ve read around a bit and found a lot of people saying uninstall old drivers first or try disabling on board gfx (which i was using prior to the purchase of this card).

I`ve tried to do both of these but i`m not sure if i`ve done either successfully. The problem persists and i now have a poopy resolution and performance worse than my on board stuff that i had before. I`m not sure if this is a driver issue, compatibility issue or simply a case of pebkac. Hopefully its just me being a n00b and can be resolved quickly with a bit of expert advice :-)

Asus K8V-VM
256mb geforce 7300gs - Peakhardware.com

Edit: Just found out I can change the resolution but that drivers still wont install, and on anything above 800x600 its a bit blurry in places, including 1280x1024 which is my monitors max res and has never been blurry before.

Hello Mintedjo,

It sounds to me like you have a DOA video card. If you have all video drivers uninstalled and the drivers that come on the install CD give you that error message, it would seem to me it is a defective video card.

That error means that the installer simply can't find a video card that matches what model the drivers are meant for. For instance, if you install a Netgear network card and then you try installing Linksys drivers, it will say an almost identical error message.

The only other thing I would try is to reseat the video card. You may not have it pushed into the slot all the way and it may not have a good connection.

Otherwise, it sounds like a bad card.

Hope that helps!

I've tried taking it out and putting it back in and checked that its fitted properly.
The main problem at the moment i guess is i`m not sure if i`ve managed to do the things suggested in other forums, that is uninstall all the old drivers and disable on board video.
I ran everest to check if that recognised the card and it managed to do so, giving the model number and stuff.
I`m fairly sure that the problem is caused by me not prepping my pc for the installation properly. There are a few posts online about the k8v-vm and thats making me think its related somehow to the on board graphics.

How can my PC be using the card to display if its a dead card?
I thought if the card was dead it just wouldnt work at all.

I wont give up with it yet, and if you or anybody else has any more information on this then i`ll be very grateful. Maybe i`ll pop into the store and see if they have anything interesting to say on the matter. Maybe I should've let them install it.... :-(

Thanks, Joe.

A defective video card doesn't mean it just doesn't produce any video. But trying more stuff won't hurt obviously. To "prep" your computer for installation means two things.

One is to uninstall your old drivers first, which isn't necessary really unless you are taking out say an Nvidia card and replacing it with another Nvidia card. But even if you do that, just reinstalling the driver should work. Regardless, to uninstall the drivers, you don't have to have the old card in. You can do it now. You simply go to device manager, open your display adapter list, and delete whatever driver is in there now, then reboot the computer.

The next thing to do to prep the computer is if there is a known problem with the motherboard's ability to choose the right video output, is leave the new video card in, go to your BIOS, and disable on-board video. The method of doing this is different with every motherboard. But basically, when you turn the computer on, it will tell you "Press some key to go into Setup or Bios." Just keep pressing that key until you are in the Bios. Then look for some setting that is something like On-Board video - Enabled/Disabled. Or something like, Pimary Video Output - Auto/PCI-E/On-Board. Choose PCI-E if it looks like the latter.

Another thing you can do is update your Bios. But if you are going to do that, first understand that if you do it incorrectly, you can damage your motherboard permanently. And second, read ALL the Bios update notes to see if there is something that they mention fixes a problem with graphics cards. If there is no mention of anything referring to graphics problems, then updating the Bios won't do anything and is completely unnecessary.

To update your Bios, you need to go to the motherboard website, get their latest Bios, and use their instructions on how to update it. There are many different ways to update a Bios.

Hope that helps!

Hi again.
I`ve reinstalled windows to make sure that there was nothing conflicting within the OS (as recommended by the nice people at the PC store) and done my best to change BIOS settings but I`m not getting anywhere.
I think you must be right about it being a dead card. I`m down to my final option which is to take the card to get checked out at the store. Is there any chance this could be caused by a physical defect on the motherboard?

Thanks Joe

There is a possibility it is the motherboard for sure. It's just going to require some testing. To be fully certain where the problem lies, you really need to put that video card in another computer and see what happens.

Unfortunately, with these kinds of situations, it just takes some testing. I can't think of anything else that it could be (according to your symptoms) other than a physical defect with the video card or motherboard.

Howdy doo!
Finally sorted it out.
DOA!
Had to take it to the pc shop because i dont have any other pci-e pc's to test it on. He was suprised at the partial functionality that it provided. Anyway i`ve got my drivers installed now, i`m gonna play on some games :-)

Thanks

PCHelpForum ftw!