Everything worked fine until I installed the driver for
the video card.

The fan has been making noise about as long as the memory
has been messing up, close to half a year. It only makes
noise the first 5 minutes though, then it runs fine. I
would get it replaced, but Dell only likes dealing with
one problem at a time, and I'm not getting anywhere on
this one. The fan is one of two fans inside of the CPU.

The nVidia card came with the computer.

There is no integrated video option in my BIOS, but
nothing as far as the display adpater concerned is
disabled anyway. The memory just started giving me memory
read/write failures yesterday, and it didn't detect 256KB
of it, the amount in one module of RAM. Dell wouldn't
answer this, maybe because I still have a warranty, but
doesn't a memory read/write error mean the memory is
dying? Because in that case 1 module is probably going
bad.

I will trying moving the card to a different slot next,
when I test the modules one by one to see if I can figure
out which one is missing 32MB. I'm kind of loaded down by
the finals the rest of this week, so I probably won't get
around to it until Christmas break next week. I will let
you know how it goes.

The Dell Technician who was sent to replace the hard
drive did just that and nothing else. I even checked the
connections on the hard drive to verify that they were
correct and secure.

The only yellow exclamation points are by the devices
that I haven't installed yet, like the soundcard and
modem. There is also a memory range conflict with the
sound card. IRQ 9 is where the sound card is. I tried
switching the IRQ of the the display adapter, but an
unknown comm device which was also set on IRQ of 3, kept
changing to whatever I changed the display adpater to.
There is an IRQ 3 conflict between PCI IRQ Steering, and
the Standard VGA Adapter, which I don't understand since
PCI IRQ Steering is required in order for the display
adpater to work.

Dell is ignoring the IRQ conflict, AND the memory
conflict, and acting as if it were JUST a video adapter
problem, which is probably why nothing is working. I'm
not quite a Dell Technician when it come to hardware, but
then again, I'm not stupid either.

Thanks for the help,
Charissa

<snipped to reduce bandwidth - hope you can now read it!>

Mmmm..  in that case, perhaps we should take a step back and look a some of
the other things you alluded to in your original post.

So did it ever work correctly immediately after the 'clean install'?

When did the fan start making noises? And which fan - the one on the CPU?

If so get it replaced pdq!   It may (or may not) be causing this problem but
if your CPU overheats - then that's expensive!!  In fact, get any 'dodgy'
fan replaced pdq!!

Now, the IRQ issue.

Is the nVidia card 'new' to your machine or did it come as part of the
original package?

IRQ3 is almost always reserved for COM ports (including 'older' modems). You
say that it has been assigned to your Video Adapter - very strange. Video
card 'usually' want to go to IRQ9.

Two thoughts here, does the motherboard have integrated video?  If so, have
you disabled it in the BIOS. Your 'odd' memory figures make me wonder.

Secondly, try your video card in another slot - although I can't see why it
should have worked before unless someone has moved it - at the time of the
new HDD perhaps?. Did whoever replaced you HDD, play around in the BIOS or
shift any other cards around?

Take a look at Device Manager and see what (if any) exclamation marks are
showing. Also make a note of the list of IRQ allocations for oddball
conflicts. N.B. there may well be some legitimate sharing of resources.

Answers to these questions *may* explain why you can't install your Video
Adapter successfully.

Regarding:-

One job at a time <g>

Mart