Video card install

Microsoft needs a failsafe method of installing video cards. I had all kinds of trouble with a cheap video card in Vista 32 bit. In linux, you are required to kill the GUI and work from the command line to update the driver. This annoyed me in the beginning, but now I am very glad of it. This means that all the tools to fix the broken system are there. They may not fix it, but you can at least use them to try to fix the system. As it is I cannot get the computer to come up far enough to fix the issue until I've fixed the issue on windows.

Trouble

Experiment	Result
Install driver before installing card.	No hardware found.
Boot machine after installing card.	Blue screen of death (BSOD) endless loop.
Install card, point to old card in BIOS and try to install driver.	No hardware found.
Try to boot in safe mode after installing card.	blank screen.
Windows update, then try the stuff above again.	Same result.
Install a different, but similar card just to get the driver installed.	Worked, but still get BSOD after replacing the original card.
Install a different, identical card to verify hardware.	Same BSOD even after installing the driver.
Boot linux for a comparison.	Boots on troubled card just fine.
Fresh install of Vista.	Won't boot Vista or Windows 7.
BIOS upgrade on my computer.	Same thing.
Call Dell support.	"We don't qualify video cards on server machines." Paraphrase: Your are screwed.

The re-install of Windows Vista requires a drive format. I've already installed Office and gotten everything done on the machine. The last thing to do was the video card. Now I have to start completely over again and I have no idea if it will work. I may have to send back all seven video cards we bought if they will take them.

Fortunately, the booting off the CD part didn't work. This prevented me from having to wipe the system just to find out it was still broken.

I fought with this for hours. Remember, each experiment above has a dozen steps. It doesn't help that the machine takes five minutes to reboot.

Did I mention it's been longer than 30 days since we bought the cards? No?