Ok is its christmas and I got a new geforce nvidia 8800 gt. I turned my computer off. Unpluged everything. Opened the case. Took the old card out(geforce 8300gs). PUT my new one in. Connected what I think is the POWER adaptor to the BACK of my gfx card and the other two plugs into the matching plugs on the power SUPPLY (not sure what the plugs are called. They had 4 boxes in a line is 1 prong in each). Then I plugged my monitor, mouse, and key board in. Turned my computer on and it booted up. Once it got fully booted it went to the "MICROSOFT failed to start up correctly. Looking for possible solutions. If one is found we will attempt to fix it." or something like that. Then 2 seconds later the monitor went extremly dark. I almost thought it was off. Any idea what is wrong? Was I suppose to load the CD in before I plugged in the card? Could I be Im low on power? thank you for the help. Im writing this from anouther computer btw.

MattBump in hopes that I might get this sorted out and ill be able to play total war 2 on uber graphics.What power supply do you have?
Sounds like it could well be a power issue to me.
The documentation with the card and/or PSU will tell you which pwoer connector is required, by the way.