I have an HP Pavilion a1250n. I just recently bought a Sound Blaster X-fi Elite Pro (PCI) sound card to use with it. When i insert the card into the pc and start it up, the pc does not boot (or post). I have the same exact problem with a newer Nvidia (PCI Express) card.
The problem: When I boot up the pc with any of those two cards in, the screen stays black (The monitor does not wake up from standby). When the pc runs normally and i start it up, the fans will kick in for about ten seconds and then rev down to it's quieter speed. When either of these two cards are in the pc, the fans just stay on and rev high. The processor light stays either on (solid) or blinking rapidly.
These two cards work fine in other computers. the sound blaster works fine in my HP Pavilion a450n, which is at least four years older than the a1250n. The BIOS is set to default, the internal sound card is on (auto on/off) and works fine (i'm using that as my primary sound right now, by the way.) The sound card itself has no jumpers, but it does have an auxilary input/output and some other wierd plugin. The motherboard has two jumpers, if that helps anyone.
If anybody could help me with this problem, it would be greatly appreciated