8800 GT Problem

[imashination]

Its fried, if its under warranty send it back, otherwise its time to whip out the credit card im afraid. Theres no coming back from that error.

[meleseDESIGN]

That´s a defect gfx card you have there.
You can resale this card at ebay as defect with the desciption above and you would probably get still 50-75$ for it. Maybe someone in this world can make use of some parts like the cooler, GPU or the crude metal. Probably better as to trash it.

;)

[DuttyFoot]

Its fried, if its under warranty send it back, otherwise its time to whip out the credit card im afraid. Theres no coming back from that error.

I actually bought this card when i built my rig. I built this rig about early 2008 so the warranty for the 8800GT has more than likely run out.

That´s a defect gfx card you have there.
You can resale this card at ebay as defect with the desciption above and you would probably get still 50-75$ for it. Maybe someone in this world can make use of some parts like the cooler, GPU or the crude metal. Probably better as to trash it.

I guess i should just folllow the advice you guys are giving me and gett an upgrade. I was looking at the gtx 260 and 285. The 285 I have tested at work and its a pretty beefy card but i really don't wanna spend close to 400 dollars for a new card. the gtx 260 is below 250 dollars so i might get that. any of you fellas tried the gtx 260. the other thing with the new cards is the power req, i have a 550w power supply in my rig at home, i hope that will be good enough.

thanks for the feedback

[meleseDESIGN]

Yeah, the GTX 285 is surely a bit better, but the 260 should be just fine.
Actually I use the 260 in my Dual-CPU System (2x X5570 95Watts TDP each CPU also with 48GB RAM, 2x 2TB intern + 2x 1,5GB extern via eSATA HDDs and 4x 120mm FANs) with a 550 Watts ECO 80+ PSU and all works great without any issues. 550 Watts PSU is probably not a good solution for SLI or 3-Way SLI, but in your situation it wouldn´t cause any problems with your Single-CPU none SLI System.

;)

[DuttyFoot]

Yeah, the GTX 285 is surely a bit better, but the 260 should be just fine.
Actually I use the 260 in my Dual-CPU System (2x X5570 95Watts TDP each CPU also with 48GB RAM, 2x 2TB intern + 2x 1,5GB extern via eSATA HDDs and 4x 120mm FANs) with a 550 Watts ECO 80+ PSU and all works great without any issues. 550 Watts PSU is probably not a good solution for SLI or 3-Way SLI, but in your situation it wouldn´t cause any problems with your Single-CPU none SLI System.

thanks for the info. at least i will not have to get a new psu to run this card. the 285 is a nice card but a bit costly so i guess i will go with the 260. going from the 8800 to the 260 i s a good jump i guess, plus it will be able to run maya and my other apps. i do play games on my pc, but since sli does nothing for 3d i will put that part of it off until then.

thanks again

[DuttyFoot]

aint that some bull. so i put in the gtx 260 in, downloaded the 196.21 driver installed it, and i still get the same error when i double click on the nvidia control panel. it still says that the nvidia display settings are not available and i am not using a display attached to a nvidia gpu. i really didnt want to reinstall a clean install of vista but it looks like i have no choice now. whatever occured when i ran disk cleanup took something off that i probably shouldn't have taken off.

[deumilcat]

aint that some bull. so i put in the gtx 260 in, downloaded the 196.21 driver installed it, and i still get the same error when i double click on the nvidia control panel. it still says that the nvidia display settings are not available and i am not using a display attached to a nvidia gpu. i really didnt want to reinstall a clean install of vista but it looks like i have no choice now. whatever occured when i ran disk cleanup took something off that i probably shouldn't have taken off.

...and kudos to the above know-it-all who assessed your previous card was fried..
99% percent of the time the problem is NOT that the card has fried, especially when it happens after a massive sweep of files for cleaning..

error 37 means the driver cant be initialized by windows.
A fried card is only one of the many causes for that

my guess is that when you cleaned, you deleted some driver files copied on weird places by the older gfx card previous install. Those files cant be accessed anymore-> error 37

moreever these files cant be accessed either when trying to uninstall the card-> no uninstall-> the OS still try to initialize the driver-> error 37


to avoir reinstalling the OS totally:

start by uninstalling all graphics card related driver & software in add/remove

restart

do a search in all your disks for "NVIDIA" folders and delete them all
Dont touch registry or system folders, you dont know what you re doing :D

shut down

If your mother board has a default graphic chip,
remove your graphic card (else just let the graphic card, you need to see what u re doing :p)

restart the OS, cancel every attempt of driver install by the OS

check in the system panel that the card driver appears as un-installed
I dunno much about Vista but I remember it installs driver without prompt
If so, right click and uninstall the driver it just install

restart

the display should look shitty, like default low res VGA or something
and in the panel the error 37 should have disappeared
(since the OS no longer want to initialize any drievr)

If it s still there then yes you re screwed because your cleanup has created a logical gap
in the OS (the OS cant uninstall the card therefore still tries to initialize although he cant know that the driver it is looking for doesnt exist anymore) --> only exit is tempering with the registries (I assume you dont know how to do that in a clean way and I couldnt explain safely) or.. reinstall


if error 37 luckily disappeared:


again refuse any attempt by the OS to install drivers

run the drivers install setup

restart

Should look clean now

at least it made you upgrade your graphic card
you probly can sell the 8800 at a non-fried price though (test it)

[DuttyFoot]

...and kudos to the above know-it-all who assessed your previous card was fried..
99% percent of the time the problem is NOT that the card has fried, especially when it happens after a massive sweep of files for cleaning..

error 37 means the driver cant be initialized by windows.
A fried card is only one of the many causes for that

my guess is that when you cleaned, you deleted some driver files copied on weird places by the older gfx card previous install. Those files cant be accessed anymore-> error 37

moreever these files cant be accessed either when trying to uninstall the card-> no uninstall-> the OS still try to initialize the driver-> error 37


to avoir reinstalling the OS totally:

start by uninstalling all graphics card related driver & software in add/remove

restart

do a search in all your disks for "NVIDIA" folders and delete them all
Dont touch registry or system folders, you dont know what you re doing :D

shut down

If your mother board has a default graphic chip,
remove your graphic card (else just let the graphic card, you need to see what u re doing :p)

restart the OS, cancel every attempt of driver install by the OS

check in the system panel that the card driver appears as un-installed
I dunno much about Vista but I remember it installs driver without prompt
If so, right click and uninstall the driver it just install

restart

the display should look shitty, like default low res VGA or something
and in the panel the error 37 should have disappeared
(since the OS no longer want to initialize any drievr)

If it s still there then yes you re screwed because your cleanup has created a logical gap
in the OS (the OS cant uninstall the card therefore still tries to initialize although he cant know that the driver it is looking for doesnt exist anymore) --> only exit is tempering with the registries (I assume you dont know how to do that in a clean way and I couldnt explain safely) or.. reinstall


if error 37 luckily disappeared:


again refuse any attempt by the OS to install drivers

run the drivers install setup

restart

Should look clean now

at least it made you upgrade your graphic card
you probly can sell the 8800 at a non-fried price though (test it)

its no problem at all, the guys who said the card was fried where just trying to be helpful. i hope my previous post didn't give the impression that i'm upset about getting a new card and the problem persists. my dads computer is giving some serious issues so i plan to get him a new mobo, and some memory . Since my 8800gt doesn't seem to be the problem i will throw it in his pc.

thanks for all the steps you think i should try deumil. I tried a majority of those steps tirelessly and the problem still occured. i used drivesweeper and all, and that didn't change anything. unfortunately i had to do a clean install, but everything runs fine now.

thanks again fellas

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