new graphics card for m15x not being recognized

[afrustratedman]

Hello, all. My computer is an old, pre-dell Alienware, specifically an m15x. About a year back, the graphics card that came with it burned out. I believe it was an 8700M GT. Bummer, but it happens. I've been running on the integrated chip ever since. Since then, I've been jumping through all kinds of hoops to get my hands on another compatible card so that I can play half of my games again.

Anyway, I finally got a card that looks like it should work. It's an 8800M GTX, which is one of the stock cards that came with these machines. I had to alter my heatsink a bit, but that's all it took to get it in. I know that the card was tested to make sure it worked just prior to being shipped to me, so I'm fairly certain that it's not a dud.

Problem is, you'd never know that by seeing how my computer has responded to it. It doesn't show up in the Device manager, and switching to dedicated graphics boots the computer without a display. I've got a set of drivers for it that a little research on this forum says should work fine, but running the setup for them gives me an error that it can't find any relevant hardware, even using modified INF files. From the way it's heating up, I'm pretty certain the card is getting power, and I don't think that the PCI bus itself is the problem, since that shows up in Device Manager just fine and fiddling around with it trying to re-seat the card (which I have done multiple times) definitely screws with the display.

Ordinarily, I would just figure that the card MUST be broken, despite assurances to the contrary, but this isn't the first time that this has happened. I've tried to install several other cards since my first one blew that should have worked, but had this same problem. It could just be a coincidence, and I've gotten really unlucky with cards, but I tend to think that there is something I'm just missing. Thoughts?

Attached is a dxdiag using the integrated chip. I'm pretty sure that my BIOS is up-to-date and so forth.

DxDiag.txt

Update: Well, it turns out that my main problem was the On-Screen Display utility. (the software that handles switching between integrated and dedicated cards) After a few times swapping cards in and out, it completely stopped working. A quick un-install/re-install got it going much better. Mind you, it looks like the card I just got was indeed a dud, but some of the others work at least a little bit now. The best one will work about as well as the integrated chip, but if given anything graphics intensive to do, it black screens and crashes the computer. :confused: Whee.

Edited October 9, 2012 by afrustratedman