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Help installing new PC hardware... (SOLVED)

EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
edited February 2014 in Off-Topic
Ok, random question on a BG off topic forum, but I'd rather ask you guys for help than the million PC help boards out there. So I just bought the geforce GTX 660 gfx card, and the corsair 750m PSU and I think I am having a bit of difficulty installing.

All hardware installed, plugged in correctly etc.

Now I have an MSI motherboard with intergrated graphics (amd radeon) which I thought I had to remove fully before installing my new geforce. I heard somewhere that these mothers boards sometimes cause conflicts by trying to boot from the intergrated VGA.

Upon doing so I have repeatedly had an error when restarting the pc which says "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_EQUAL"

In a panic, I quickly realised that this was likely because I accidently uninstalled my MB chipset drivers. Reinstalling them, I *think* I have fixed the issue. No more error messages.

My questions:

1) Did this fix it?
2) Did uninstalling my chipset drivers whilst I had my nvidia drivers installed cause some instability?
3) Should I uninstall/reinstall both in safe mode?
4) How do I know if my computer is trying to boot from my intergrated GFX or not? I honestly can't tell. I have my monitor plugged into my gfx card, so I assume it's working?
5) My computer should now be able to play high stat games like BF4, but system requirements lab is hitting me at just above minimum... bit confused. Is this right?


Thanks for any help!

Post edited by EntropyXII on

Comments

  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    Nope - doing it again: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL - when I switch the computer on and off.

    Sigh...
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Full specs and detailed info on what you've done would be nice.
  • The_Potty_1The_Potty_1 Member Posts: 436
    edited February 2014
    Baha, I feel your pain, I used to run two monitors, one off the integrated graphics, and one off a dedicated graphics board. Convincing BIOS that this is really what I wanted took a small amount of begging, and quite a lot of rebooting. Now it's easy, because I can run both screens off the dedicated board.

    I would say remove the geforce entirely, plug the screen into the integrated radeon, boot up, and uninstall the radeon drivers. Shut down, plug in the geforce, plug the screen into the geforce, boot, and install the geforce drivers. Hope.

    If that doesn't work, do it again, but go into BIOS when you plug in the geforce, and tell it to use the dedicated board not the integrated graphics. Although it should know already, because your screen is plugged into it.
  • BelanosBelanos Member Posts: 968
    You don't uninstall the chipset drivers to turn off your integrated graphics, you have to do that through your BIOS. Or you can disable the device through your System Manager. Doing it through your BIOS is better though. As long as the chip is still active, it's going to be looking for the drivers.
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @FinneousPJ @The_Potty_1 @Belanos

    Full system specs:

    image


    Ok, upon receiving my new toys, I installed the hardware correctly in the chassis.

    I plugged my screen into the new VGA adapter for my new geforce video card which plugged right in there.

    An Nvidia message then popped up advising me to remove all previous video card drivers. I went into add/remove programs and full uninstalled catalyst and all associated drivers.

    Of course, my display settings went messy, until I full installed the nvidia drivers which I got right from the website (the ones on the disk were only for windows 7, vista, xp etc - I have windows 8)

    After installing the drviers, everything seemed to work fine. My computer restarts fine (without the error message). I don't have many high spec games (I bought these for Elder Scrolls online when it comes out) but NWN2 seems to run at a very powerful rate. My PC seems to now run full specced out (max graphics from the desktop GFX control center AND within game). I haven't tried overclocking yet - not sure how to do it.

    Now after switching my PC off fully, and switching it back on I get this error message:

    DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

    Now I had read before that intergrated graphics causes a problem so I went into my BIOS setting to see if I could stop it booting from my intergrated GFX, but all the options were greyed out.

    It is at this point which I checked my AMD live update, and it told me my MB chipset drivers aren't installed. So I reinstalled them right from the CD and things started to work a little better. I thought all was fine until I switched my PC on and off again.

    Got the same message:

    DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

    The message itself comes up on a light blue screen for about 10 seconds and then everything seems to start normally.

    I am a bit worried because I obviously don't want to be using my PC while it is like this in case I might damage something.

  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @The_Potty_1 - I'll try what you said when I get back from work. Working Saturdays when I've got pc fixing to do is not fun. Can't focus on work. Can only think about my poor pc :(
  • The_Potty_1The_Potty_1 Member Posts: 436
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff560244(v=vs.85).aspx

    I'm afraid I can't offer you much more than sympathy. Well the driver seems bugged, so either try an earlier version if this one is straight off the website, but if it's off a cd that came with the card, try downloading the latest version.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Well don't worry, software cannot damage hardware.

    Did you make sure the AMD software uninstalled correctly?

    You found the correct options in the BIOS for disabling the iGPU, but they were greyed out, yes?

    If your screen's plugged into the GPU and you get output then it's obviously working on the hardware side, but there's something wrong with your driver (un)installation.
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    edited February 2014
    This is what I would do - assuming your OS is not corrupted.

    Physically remove your nvidia card.
    Boot and (re)install your amd drivers - reboot and check the status - shutdown
    Install the card back - plug the monitor on it.
    Install your nvidia driver - don't UNinstall (<-edit) anything - reboot.

    If you get a working screen at each phase, your BIOS does its job somehow.
    However if you can't modify its settings you have a problem (supervisor password secured ?).
    Post edited by Musigny on
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    Do you think it could be because I installed the wrong nvidia drivers? Sorry, like I said I can't check right now because I'm at work.

    I attempted to locate the latest drivers for GeForce 6 series for windows 8 because my installation cd would only install onto windows 7, vista and xp (annoying!)

    I found two. I can't remember the exact version numbers but one was slightly higher in version number and about 20 mb extra in size. Of course I picked the highest one with the largest size but could try it the other way around. Is 6 series the right drivers for me?

    Sorry - I know I sound like a complete noob. Last time I did a pc build was about 12 years ago! Times have changed a little.
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    edited February 2014
    I don't think it matters that much.
    http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/71704 is likely the driver you want.
    Uninstall your former nvidia driver before proceeding
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    Yeah that's the bad boy I downloaded. The other one looked to be an earlier version and only about 180 mg. I'll let you all know how it goes gate I get back home.
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @musigny - right after removing nvidia from my system and restarting it seems my computer is stuck in black screen. It gets past the boot screen, and then the windows screen it gets stuck on a black screen that for a split second every now an dragon I can see as my password screen. Is my computer buggered? Was it wise to have both video drivers unistalled?
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    edited February 2014
    No additional driver is your setup when you initially install Windows.
    If Windows is not able to be displayed, this is probably because you still have an additional driver.
    To detect if this is the case you can boot windows in safe mode or repair mode.
    And from there, fix your integrated hardware drivers.
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    Tried going into boot mode but windows 8 is apparently a pain when trying to do so. Seems I need to see my screen to do so. I managed to bring back a visual by plugging my GeForce back in and working from the 600x400 screen that appears. I us now telling me I have no amd gfx diver installed, after I've tried installing it 3 times -.-
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    edited February 2014
    Can you make sure that the amd motherboard/chipset drivers provided with your MSI card are (re)installed (even if you see no specific graphics module) ?
    http://www.msi.com/product/mb/FM2-A85XMA-P33.html#/?div=Driver&amp;os=Win8 64
    Once this is secured, you can attempt to install the nvidia stack.
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    I did once, but it's still giving the error. I'm using slim drivers to test what drivers I'm missing. Says I'm missing some pretty key amd drivers
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @Musigny - Installed chipset drivers you suggested and still getting the same error message. Is there a gfx driver I don't have installed? I have installed catalyst but some of the same options from before aren't showing up.

    it might be worth mentioning that my monitor is still plugged into my geforce, as my amd is still not bringing up a screen.

    image
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    Is my information horribly out of date, or do I see an IRQ conflict here?
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @jackjack I genuinely don't know. What I do know now is that the majority of my windows install is corrupt. ..... SIGH. I'm such a tool. What's a irq conflict?
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    edited February 2014
    It stands for interrupt request. From my limited understanding, each piece of hardware "interrupts" the system when used, (i.e. when you click your mouse, when your graphics card activates for games, when your hard drive is accessed), and each must do so on its own independent "channel". Two pieces of hardware may not share an IRQ channel, or you end up with a conflict.
    Here is a better explanation:
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupt_request
    As I've mentioned, my information may be shockingly out of date.
    Edit: assuming I'm not completely off base, perhaps the solution here is to change the IRQ channel for your integrated graphics chip, rather than disable it, which would have to be done in your BIOS, I believe. Sorry if I end up confusing instead of helping.
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    Is your Catalyst Control Center still installed ?!
    The error (windows popup) you see seems issued by this software (not your OS).
    If so, use the AMD Catalyst Install Manager in the programs and features applet.
    Run the uninstall manager to selectively remove the control center (and keep the chipset / SATA drivers). Check if you also have an amd display driver in the install list. You may need to remove it too.
    Hopefully you can install and enable the nvidia driver now.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Agree with @Musigny
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @musigny @finneousPJ @jackjack - I figured out the issue. It all stemmed from a moment of stupidity.

    1) Upon installing the geforce, it asked me to ensure I uninstalled my previous GFX drivers but instead of going into device manager and 'disabling' AMD Display Drivers, I went right into add/remove programs and removed the entire of catalyst control, INCLUDING all associated drivers. This was a bit of bad advice i found on a message board in tech support forums.

    2) This in turn explains why my onboard gfx was greyed out in my bios settings. So it should theoretically be fine, however: when I uninstalled catalyst from add/remove programs I also (accidently) uninstalled my chipset drivers for my motherboard. This started to cause a variety of issues immediately.

    3) The error message "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" as @jackjack pointed out, was because of a driver conflict. Even though I uninstalled my chipset drivers and associated intergrated GFX drivers, my motherboard was still trying to load up my onboard display drivers ahead of my new nvidia drivers. But without being able to alter the greyed out options in BIOS, there was nothing I could do about it. I did not know this at the time.

    4) After @Musigny linked me in to the new chipset drivers for MSI & AMD, I installed them like normal and nothing happened. In fact my computer was actually saying I had an earlier version - the version from my driver CD. This is because earlier I tried to install this version from my drivers cd, but because nothing appeared to happen I went to install the newer version. This appeared to cause some serious instability issues and thus the "no graphics card detected message" started to appear. Even after I installed all the drivers, my computer was still not detecting it. It had even stopped to work from my intergrated graphics VGA port altogether. There was a good number of missing dll files within my severely damaged registry.

    5) As a last resort, I uninstalled everything and used driversweeper to clear up all the old driver dlls that were littering my computer (and there appeared to be a lot). Sadly, upon doing this for some reason it had swept up all my USB drivers with it rendering my mouse and keyboard non-operational and sending me into black screen. I think I could still have rescued it, prior to this foolish move.

    6) Finally I decided enough was enough, stuck in my windows CD and did a full clean format and install (the windows CD gave me temporary mouse and keyboard powers). I loaded everything up as normal, but this time downloaded all the up to date drivers for my motherboard and intergrated GFX from their corresponding websites instead of using the cd. I then went into BIOS, disabled my intergated GFX. Plugged in my geforce, switched on and installed the drivers. Everything is working beautifully. 8 hours later... not the best way to spend a Saturday night.

    Cheers for all your help guys!

    Remember, there is a moral to this story:

    "Keep all of your computing equipment at least 10 feet away from EntropyXII - He will kill it with stupidity."
  • jackjackjackjack Member Posts: 3,251
    Glad to hear you got it out of the abyss and working!
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    Yay, you got it :)
  • MusignyMusigny Member Posts: 1,027
    Glad to know this is fixed !
  • EntropyXIIEntropyXII Member Posts: 656
    @musigny @finneousPJ @jackjack Hah! You guys won't believe this.

    I happened to get the exact same DRIVER_IRQL messages after I installed windows 8.1. After a full day of research (analysing my DMP files) I have figured out: It is my wireless network adapter! When I remove the physical card from my computer all blue screen messages on start up go away.

    All of this trouble of a £20 card. I am assuming that a new update in Windows 8.1 is not compatible with my card's drivers - how frustrating and annoying! It still seems to work however.

    Oh well, looks like a need to buy a super long ethernet cable! I have heard they're more productive anyway.

    3 days of formats, reinstallations, driver failure, and confusion just to find out it is my wireless adapter.

    I am still not sure why it appeared initially when I first installed my GFX card however. But it is definitely an issue with Windows 8.

    Remember the moral to this story: Keep Entro away from your computer equipment. Much further away than previously suggested.
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