Can't enter bios after installing new graphics card.

Hello all. I've never encountered any problem like this that wouldnt be solved with some quick searches on the internet.

I'll get straight to the point:
I had a XFX Geforce 9800gtx, which i changed to a Gainward Geforce gtx275 the other day. Everything seemed fine, i installed the drivers from disc without problem. Then I did some testing to see if everything was fine (Crysis, etc). No problems detected.

So I figured I'd go online to see if there had been released more recent drivers for my card. But to my surprise I noticed that I had 'Limited or no connection' (don't know how to translate it more accurately as I'm running a norwegian version of Vista).

I proceeded doing all the usual troubleshooting, like unplugging the modem and setting it back in, flushing dns, ipconfig, etc, and when I tried changing the ethernet cable i noticed an orange light in the back of my ethernet adapter, so i figured that it might have been damaged by static or something (which i REALLY doubt).

Anyway, after trying 10 different cables, 20-30 modem reboots with no luck. I figured I'd check out the BIOS. This part really puzzled me; when i tried pressing delete to enter setup all i got was a black screen. Figured it was a fluke, so i tried resetting with the powerbutton, but the same problem reoccured.

tl;dr: my computer runs as usual, meaning windows boots like it should.

Problem: Orange light in ethernet port, can't enter BIOS. Problem first occured after changing graphics adapter.

Edit, Specs:
MB: Asus p5n-d 750 SLi
CPU: Dualcore E8500
GFX: Gainward Geforce gtx275 (previous was an XFX Geforce 9800gtx)
Memory: 2x2gb Corsair dominator DDR2 1066mhz (iirc, not 100% sure, and can't check from work)
PSU: Corsair 750w
OS: Vista home premium 32bit

If I've left out anything relevant, please let me know

Have you tried removing the new card and replacing it with the older, working one?
If that one works it may be that the new card is faulty.
If that one does not work, then perhaps you damaged the board (static electricity -- not grounded properly) when replacing the card in the first place.

An odd problem to be sure, but let's put aside the orange LED for a moment.

Ethernet ports typically have two led's, one for connection status, the other to indicate activity/traffic. On my Gigabyte motherboard for example, the led on the left (looking at the jack with the tab-lock on top), glows orange if a 1 Gbps connection is present, green for a 100 Mbps, or off for a 10 Mbps connection. The led on the right blinks to indicate network traffic.

Was your monitor previously plugged into an "onboard" video port? If so, your BIOS is probably still configured to use that port as the default, so when you try to get into the BIOS the signal is going to the onboard video port instead of the new GPU.

Plug your monitor back into the onboard port, boot the PC into the BIOS, then set the correct video display option. On my Gigabyte board, that means BIOS -> Advanced BIOS Features -> Init Display First -> [choose].

As stated, solid orange probably indicates that you have a valid 1 Gbps connection. This is motherboard-dependent, but somewhat standardized.

Is your current GPU in the same slot as the previous one was? If not, my answer (regarding blank screen on BIOS) still applies. Re-install the old GPU in its original slot and you may be able to get into the BIOS in order to make the required change. Another option: reset the CMOS using the jumper or remove all power to the PC and remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard for at least 60 seconds.

You may want to try simply resetting the CMOS before you bother reinstalling the old GPU.

Couple of points however:

1) Nearly as I can tell, your new GPU requires PCIe 2.0 and I don't believe your motherboard supports that spec.

2) Your new GPU has dual outputs? If so, are you sure you connected the monitor to the primary output and not the secondary?

The BIOS operates at a very low level, long before most system options have loaded. I won't swear to it, but I'd be willing to bet a donut that the BIOS display will only appear on the GPU's primary output.

Question: during the boot process, do you see anything at all on the monitor? Or nothing until Windows starts to load? If it is blank, this would go along with the probability that you have the monitor connected to the secondary port.

Check out page 48 (Adobe reader) / page 2-22 (document) of your motherboard manual http://dlsvr.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/ [...] ries_b.pdf for info on resetting the CMOS.

After checking the webshop where I bought the motherboard I learned that it has 2x PCI Express 2.0 slots. So we can rule that out as an issue completely.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/show [...] =MB-265-AS

It is extremely odd that you can see the POST messages but not see the BIOS setup screens. At this point, I would have to hope that resetting the CMOS may resolve the problem.

I have only rarely seen multiple unrelated failures occur simultaneously, leading me to believe that your network and BIOS problems share some connection. One possibility is that your BIOS has become corrupted - clearing the CMOS may fix that.

Really, I would try that (clearing CMOS) before anything else.

Hi,

if your videocard have two dvi output, try the other one for your monitor.

Maybe one of them is "default" and that one will only display bios screen.

Regards,

Brad

Perhaps I am not looking carefully enough, but I can't find a spot on Gainward's site to download/view a copy of your motherboard manual.

Somewhere in your BIOS settings will be the option to enable/disable the onboard NIC. I'm wondering if there is also the option to limit its speed to 10 Mbps and perhaps that is even the default?

Certainly worth taking a look at - now that you can see the BIOS screen.