Dual Boot Lion & Windows 7: Video Card Issue

[derekbess]

Hi there,

A friend of mine built me a really nice hackintosh computer. I went out and got a seperate harddrive and picked up windows 7 at best buy for a pretty decent price. Installed Windows 7 and I was getting hung up on the windows starting screen. Long story short, we figured out the video card was causing problems. When we removed the video card and used the integrated chip, windows 7 started up no problems at all, but when the video card is installed it takes about 10 minutes to get passed the start up screen and then the computer runs super slow, general CPU usage is around 20% with the video card installed.

Oddly enough, everything works just fine when we boot up into Mac OSX. So I returned my video card which was a Gigabyte HD Radeon 6870 and got the XFX HD Radeon 6870. Windows starts up in about 5 minutes now, but still the computer runs slow. We've tried everything but cannot figure out why Windows 7 is having such a hard time with the video cards. I've removed old drivers, updated bios, the whole nine yards but still does not work with windows 7.

Not sure if anyone has experienced this issue before or not, but if you have and have ideas to why this is happening, I'd love to heard your feedback.

 

[initalBoss]

Are the settings in bios correct? Are you using the discrete video card options in the bios and not onboard? Was Windows a fresh install or a cloned install from another drive?

 

[derekbess]

Windows was a fresh install, not from a cloned device. I couldn't even install windows without using the onboard graphics. What's odd is that it only happens with windows 7. I can have the video card plugged in and install windows xp with no problems at all, same for ubuntu.

I'm not sure what you mean by discrete video card options within the bios. Perhaps you can shed some light on that and I can give it a go to see if tha thelps.

 

[derekbess]

Gigabyte 768Xp-UD4 Ultra Durable Motherboard

That's what I have in my computer as of right now.

As far as my power supply. I have a Thermaltake TR2 RX 650W.

I'm not sure what you mean by try PSU 500 or 600 W.

It's just odd that everything works perfect on mac, but when I use my PC it's slow as dirt. Power Usage stays at around 20% when the video card is installed. But when I remove it, and start windows 7, it works just fine, power usage stays at 2-4%.

This is just so frustrating. Is there a way I can assign more power to the video card within Bios?

Also, I believe I am using 64-bit with Windows 7. When I purchased it at Best Buy I told them I wanted to utilize 64-bit and they suggested I get the Ultimate edition of Windows 7.

 

[Going Bald]

When you install Win7, you need to either disable the onboard graphics or remove the graphics card to install. Once installed, if you add gfx card and want to use both you must install the Lucid drivers for the motherboard AND the graphics card drivers from the DVD that came with the gfx card, or download them from the manufacturer support website.

 

[derekbess]

I don't see any Lucid drivers for my mother board which is the Gigabyte 768Xp-UD4 and I can't find them on Gigabyte website either.

PS: I installed Windows 7 just fine once I removed the GFX card. But I was able to install with the graphics card installed on Windows XP no problem.

This is just very frustrating. I've tried everything and can't seem to figure it out.

 

[Going Bald]

Win XP installed fine because WinXP doesn't have drivers for and doesn't recognize the CPU graphics.
Try this: In BIOS set the onboard VGA to "always enable" instead of "auto" or "disabled"
This will make the onboard always first choice of GPU.

 

[derekbess]

Alright so I set VGA as you suggested and now when I try to boot with Windows 7 I get a blue screen with errors on it.

I just don't understand why there is such an issue with using a video card with my setup when using Windows 7.

Any more suggestions for me to try before I tie a chain to the computer and use it as a boat anchor?

 

[derekbess]

Alright, I think I might have fixed this issue with Windows 7. I was playing around with the VGA Output BIOs and I set it to "PEG" option which is the first one that displays and the others ones are like enabled and auto. It was originally set on auto, so when I changed it, I started Windows 7 and it instantly started, no wait, no nothing. I checked the device manager and the integrated HD Graphics Driver is no longer listed. CPU Usage is around 4-5%, about to test it with Diablo 3. But I believe this has fixed the issue, but I haven't tried Mac yet. I'll be back to post my results here shortly.

 

[derekbess]

It's safe to say that fixed the issue. I played Diablo3 on Windows 7, works pretty good, not as smooth as on my Mac, but it's nice to have Windows working like it's supposed to.

Now I'm just wondering if I returned the originally video card for nothing. I should have gotten on here sooner before losing $30 with the RMA. Oh well, we live and we learn right?

I hope this helps anyone who is having this type of issue in the future.

Again, all I did was changed the VGA settings within BIOS to PEG instead of Auto.

Now Windows is starting up like a champ.

Thanks for all the help and support!