Can someone help an amateur instlall a new graphics card?

[k4p84]

I got everything connected up ok - and I noticed even that the loose PCI cable could only go one way - which is handy (i.e. connector blocks are slightly different either end).

They Are keyed differently to ensure they can only put inserted one way and because some motherboards use a 6 or 8 pin plug now to supply more power to the CPU. This way there is now way to use the wrong power supply lead on the wrong component

Regarding your Data Drive. Open the case up and ensure you have not knocked out any cable running from the drives to the MB or their power leads. This can easily be done will plying about in the case, we have all done it :-)
I can not tell much about the drives you have from the pics. They look like SATA ones from the MB headers but we would need a pic of them to be sure.

Since your PC is booting fine by the looks of things you can try another thing.

Go to start menu and right click on my computer. Select Manage from the list. Then select disk management. The naming may differ depending on your OS, XP / Vista / 7 etc but they are very similar.
Here you can see all Volumes that are visible to your OS. These can include USB drives and HDD, etc.

Picture borrowed from another site.....


Does your data drive show up here?

I turned things on and heard a slight, but frightening electric 'click', like static. In trepidation I carried on and installed the card - which works great and is silent. BUT: my D: drive is not accessible and it's where ALL my data is. I keep programs on C:. So, I assume I've blown whatever makes the D: disk live. I really need some big time help now.... sorry....

What sequence did you install in mate. Having the PC disconnected from the mains and removing all power from the Capacitors, as described above by hitting the power button again, is the safest way to install components.
Anything else and you could risk damaging components.
In all rights you should ground yourself, statically I mean, before carrying out any work too.

What shall I check to diagnose exactly what's happened? How can I then fix it? Did the graphics card overload the PSU?

PSU's are getting quite smart now. If the load that the computer is trying to draw is above the maximum load that the PSU is rated for, in your case 600W, it will shut things down. You only get PSU issues using poor quality PSU's. You have a good quality one so no need to worry.

Also if you used a power calculator, PSU Calculator, available online you can work out roughly how much power your system could pull in theory. For 90% of all PC's a 500-600W PSU is more than adequate, I believe the average is as low as 350-400W load max. Only once you add SLI / Crossfire and 10+ HDD etc will you start to need the larger capacity PSU's.


Ed

[Phage]

<sigh> I said the same stuff - it just looks and reads so much better when Ed does it.
Good thing I'm not in support !

[Skyline]

Thanks, Phage and k4P84. Yes that was it. I'd dislodged a cable.
I now have everything working fine - what a nightmare journey!

The only thing I'm left with is two annoying error messages every time I now turn on my PC:
Error Messages.doc
I tried reinstalling the card's drivers a second time but no joy. Has anyone any ideas what these bizarre messages mean and how I can either suppress them or resolve them?

Many thanks everyone for the massive amount of heroic support received so far - i couldn't have got anywhere near this far without such selfless contributions.

[Phage]

Well, following this flowchart,
http://www.xkcd.com/627/

I found a number of people with the same problem and this thread looks to be the best bet.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=216475

They identify your problem as being a problem with mis-installed drivers AKA the Catalyst software. He offers the following advice.

"CLI.exe is a process which used to be associated with the proper functioning of CCC. It used to be a process which would either need to be present, or need to be started each and every time you would open CCC. Now, since you are getting an error stating that CLI.exe cannot be found, I'm assuming that your registry entries are pointing at the wrong value.

So, my solution: Reinstall the drivers, but do it exactly as I describe below:

1) Go to Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the driver components in this order! Don't reboot before I tell you to.

a) Catalyst Control Center
b) ATI Display Driver
c) ATI - Software Uninstall Utility

2) Download and install CCleaner. It is a nifty program which I'll trust over RegSupreme any day. It is not bloated, and if you don't wish to keep it after we're done, you can safely uninstall it without having to worry of it having left anything behind.

3) Reboot your PC.

4) Go to Safe Mode, by tapping F8 during the black screen with ~4 or 5 lines of text which comes before the Windows loading screen, and then selecting Safe Mode as the startup type, and Windows XP for the OS.

5) Log on to an administrator account (doesn't matter which one, but I'd suggest you use your own), and once at your desktop, start Driver Cleaner Pro.

6) In the Cleaning selection, tick "Select multiple cleaning filters" and choose the following:
- ATI
- ATI CCC
- ATI Uninstall Utility
- ATI WDM
Then press the "Start" button, and after it's done cleaning, close the program.

7) Start CCleaner and go to the "Issues" section.

8) Tick all of the filters, and run the scanner, remembering to create a registry backup when it automatically prompts you to.

9) Run the scanner again as many times as needed until nothing shows up at the screen.

10) Reboot and install your drivers in normal mode as you usually would.

*Notice: You should perhaps use ATI Tray Tools instead of CCC. It's much better in every aspect. Also, you do not need to ever install WDM drivers if you have a card that is not VIVO compliant."

There's probably a shorter way to do this. Personally I'd just uninstall everything with ATi on it from the control panel, run CCleaner a few times, then re-install the latest driver. 9.8 I believe.

[Skyline]

Thanks,Phage. I also found some stuff on tinternet about this nasty, but yours look like the best - I'll give it a try! Thanks again.

[Pob255]

nicely written Phage

However I'll add to it.

Before starting the uninstall, download the latest catalyst drivers form ati's web site

Step 10) Installing
If you're still using windows XP
once you've rebooted the pc and windows has loaded up, it will detect new hardware and try to install it, hardware wizard will open, Cancel it, do NOT let the wizard try to install.

If you're using Vista, I seem to remember you can let the wizard do it's thing because it work better. (been a while since I have used vista on anything other than pre-installed on a laptop.)

If you're using a beta version of Windows7, then let thee wizard do it's thing, it actually work better than manual installing

[Phage]

nicely written Phage

However I'll add to it.

Heh - That's like an A- ? I'll take that !
Also Skyline, might be time to do some backups by the sound of that !

[Skyline]

I finally got there! It was those old drivers that must have been the culprits.
All is safely installed and a full Acronis backup done of C: and D: (system and data). The Sapphire4890 card is excellent - noiseless and very powerful.
I'd never have done it without the incredible friendly help I received here. Many, many thanks to all!

[Pob255]

Glad to hear it's all up and running.

See it's really not that hard is it
The main thing for many people is simply overcoming the fear of digging around inside their computer.