PNY Geforce 6200 Problem

I've just bought a PNY Geforce 6200 512Mb DDR2 AGP8X graphics card and have been trying for five hours to get it installed on my system.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7DXE (which is quite old and supports AGP4X but I've heard it can support AGP8X)

I reach the 'Starting Windows' screen before it stops and does nothing.

There is no trouble in me using a standard VGA adapter installed in the AGP slot. I tried uninstalling the driver for it and restarting the computer with the new card in but the startup process only goes so far before stopping at the 'Starting Windows' screen.


Every now and again the HDD light on the front of my case will flicker and I will hear the HDD spinning (and having a think about loading or something!) but then it ceases.

I've been online and downloaded the latest drivers for this graphics card but Windows 7 won't let me install them because I need to have the card plugged into the motherboard in order for it to let the installation proceed. On the installer I get the message,

"The nvidia setup program could not locate and drivers that are compatible with your current hardware."

[*Of course I am viewing this message using the standard vga adapter because I can't use the new graphics card because it won't get past the 'Starting Windows' stage!]

When I go into safe mode the loading process goes up to amdagp.sys which I think is the last bit before it should take me to the 'Welcome' screen.

I've downloaded the latest chipset for my mobo from Gigabyte's website (although the release date was back in 2002!

*Breaking news, Windows Update has just offered me an update for Geforce 6200! However the installation failed. Here's a link to the screenshot:

http://www.4shared.com/file/183891589/cfa2c245/update_failed.html

I think it's still to do with not having the card plugged into the mobo. I wonder if I put in the new graphics card and set Windows Update to run in ten minutes time, would it apply the update because the card would be present?