updated nvidia drivers, now comp won't boot

square_imp · 1 Jul 2007 at 17:49

am back from uni atm and have been using my family computer a bit. for some reason all the graphics were horrible so i uninstalled the forceware drivers, rebooted, installed the latest ones (94.24), rebooted and lo and behold the graphics were back to normal. all good i thought. got a bit obsessed with fixing the computer so uninstalled some games my brother didn't use anymore. one of them asked me to reboot, so i told it to go ahead. except it won't boot anymore. it registers the gpu, gets to the screen where it shows the a8n sli deluxe splash and says press del to enter setup, and stops. it'll quite happily sit there and not do anything for hours. any ideas?

the mobo is an a8n sli deluxe, the gpu is a 6600 (i think, possible 6800?) and its a pentium 4 3ghz. not sure why it would have done this but naturally my dad is blaming me ;p any help would be appreciated.

fobose · 1 Jul 2007 at 17:53

Worth a shot but try reseating the graphics card, if that doesn't work and you have a spare graphics card you could use as a test try it.

square_imp · 1 Jul 2007 at 18:00

thanks for the quick reply

not sure i've got a spare graphics card, but might just take the one in there out. any idea why it would do that?

fobose · 1 Jul 2007 at 18:03

Just sods law, uninstalling games was probably unrelated. Its worth a shot at reseating it atleast, I think if the card had died it wouldn't show anything on the screen at all so fingers crossed.

Oh and btw, the Gainward 7800GS+ 512Mb is no longer the fastest AGP

BAMBI · 1 Jul 2007 at 18:15

Try hiting F8 at and see if you can make it to safe mode.

square_imp · 1 Jul 2007 at 18:29

haha is it not? what is?
ok, so just before i was gonna take out the graphics card i thought i'd try it again. and it booted. which was nice. however, now it asks for the drivers for (in this order): sm bus controller, other pci bridge device, pci memory controller. actually, thinking about it, it asked for those after i reinstalled the graphics drivers. now what?

fobose · 1 Jul 2007 at 19:30

It might be a long shot but the ACPI setting in the bios could have change making it suddenly detect all that, as it didn't boot properly perhaps its reset the cmos or something. Look in bios for the ACPI setting, most are "enabled" - I could be wrong though.

the ATi x1950 pro 512mb is faster, and there is also now a 7950GT 512mb but I am not sure if the x1950 beats it (7950GT costs WAY more tho).

<edit> just re-read your post and if it asked for those drivers after you reinstall the nvidia drivers then I doubt it is the ACPI setting, prob best not fiddling with it anyway.