I just built my first PC from the ground up. i have a 2.5 GHz Q8300 quad on an MSI G31M3 Mobo with an nVidia 9800GT 1GB by Inno3D. At the moment i am running on the intel onboard graphics because my 9800GT is not showing up on the device manager for me to install the drivers for it. Besides the off chance it isn't in properly (pretty sure it is/have double checked) what could be stopping it from showing up?

Does it need an external power supply? There were no other cables in the box however.

Thanks for any help.

it might need supplemental power, but that shouldn't prevent it from showing up in the device manager. when you boot, does it show anything on the screen? you might also have to change some options in your bios...

Nothing shows up. I have checked my bios but not found it on there either.

Quote from BenjiMC :

Nothing shows up. I have checked my bios but not found it on there either.

it would be something along the lines of "video priority" with the options of onboard and pci/agp. it's usually buried in the same menu as the other pci options.

ye, i just changed it to PCIE but it didnt work.

tried different slots? tried another computer?

if there is a power socket on it, it'll be on the edge opposite the output adaptors.

Quote from BenjiMC :

ye, i just changed it to PCIE but it didnt work.

Have you connected the powersupply to the videocard? Without it this power, it will not function.
Most likely 1x6 pcie connector.

Can you show a pic how you connected power to it?

Well, most likely the card wont even work if its not full powered. As much ive seen around the net, it gives an error during bios screen.

Quote from hazaky :

Well, most likely the card wont even work if its not full powered. As much ive seen around the net, it gives an error during bios screen.

AFAIK it depends on motherboard or BIOS.

it's not connected to any power, just in the PCIE. I am gonna go to the shop and pick up a 6 pin connector to see if that helps. But i thought it would of at least shown up no?

The card must be connected to the power supply. At least 9600GT had to be. However it recognised the card without being connected to the power supply. Saying the card doesn't get enough power, I connected, and works fine.

Thats what i expected, but i get absoloutly nothing. Can't even install drivers.

Quote from BenjiMC :

it's not connected to any power, just in the PCIE. I am gonna go to the shop and pick up a 6 pin connector to see if that helps. But i thought it would of at least shown up no?

Usually most of the cards (nvidia specially) should include molex > PCIE connector cables. Weird

Anyways, drop us your overall system specs. Do you have integrated videocard on the motherboard? If yes, turn it off in bios. If u dont know what to do there, then leave it and post here. Dont know, but im kinda sure that it has integrated one and it havnt been turned off.

ye it does. i turned it off.

i have the power in and got my graphics card working yay

Quote from BenjiMC :

i have the power in and got my graphics card working yay

What u mean exactly? U didnt have the PCI-E power connectors attached before?

I never had the 6-pin in before cus it wasn't in the box so i thought i didn't need one or it would at least of shown up. I went to the shop and got one today.

Quote from BenjiMC :

I never had the 6-pin in before cus it wasn't in the box so i thought i didn't need one or it would at least of shown up. I went to the shop and got one today.

Did it solve the problem?

Quote from BenjiMC :

i have the power in and got my graphics card working yay

However nVidia with their infinate knowledge of drivers managed to screw this one up. Whenever i play games, even some flash games the computer crashes. I did manage to run LFS once in windowed mode however. I have looked around and found a list of drivers that work so i am gonna try one of those.

190.62 WHQL drivers should be most stable right now.

i installed 182.5 seems to be ok.