Trouble Installing Video Card - Any Ideas?

[Fuzzguitar]

My PC is an AMD Athlon 2400+XP, 256 MB DDR, 32MB on board video, on board sound, 40 GB etc and I have a Geforce 2 400MX (64MB) spare I would like to install to boost performance a bit. I've used this card in my other pc without any trouble for ages (it's a PCI card) but can't get it to work at all in the new PC. My new motherboard is a Gigabyte Triton K7.

I can't remember how I installed it the last time so I could just be doing something basically wrong, here goes with the problem:

I've got it in the PC slot no probs, but when I boot the PC it doesn't display ANYTHING (seems like monitor is in standyby mode) - not even the BIOS. Eventually, perhaps when it's about time for Windows XP to load something comes up and the monitor power light comes on. What happens is the screen goes BLACK on the left half and displays an ugly rectangle of colour on the right half. Note that the colour is different each time and I've seen it vary from yellow to purple.

Weird stuff. Then when I unplug it and use the onboard video all is fine even without rebooting.

Windows says the device is working, there are no conflicts, the PCI location is correct in the bios... my mobo manual does not say anything about jumpers that need to be changed for external graphics cards.

Is the card too old for this mobo? Could I have broken it when swapping between PC's (doesn't appear so)?

Any ideas???

The only other thing is I noticed when installing it that the mobo is actually designed fairly badly. There is a chip of some kind that got bumped on it because it's too close to the mobo's edge and the case's PCI slots. You have to apply some force to get it in, hitting it's almost unavoidable. I realise I'd slightly bent 3 pins on that chip (will never work in low light again!) but although they are ultra small I managed to bend them back perfectly, not touching anything they shouldn't. Anyway, this chip probably isn't even related to the PCI slots and the PC is still working 100% since.

I would love to get this up and running with a little help!

[maraxle]

Do you have another PC to test the card in to make sure it still works?  Also, is there a BIOS setting to disable the onboard video?  Finally, is there another PCI slot you can try?

[Lilwolf]

btw, you will want to also check to see if you can update the bios on your motherboard to the latest.

Also, not every board can be disabled.  If you can't.. you will have HUGE problems getting it to work.  You should also test the internal video card speed and see if its acceptable / good.  The increased speed for the AGP port might end up being faster then the PCI slot (for 2d stuff especially).

good luck..

[Goz]

Also some on board video chipsets are only disabled by plugging in an AGP card.

I would try another slot as previously suggested. Some of the earlier K7 boards had chronic problems with the 3rd PCI slot actually being functional.

Hit the mobo manufacturers web site.

Good Luck

-Goz

[Sprucemoose]

I would also get the latest drivers from Nvidia for the graphics card.  It never hurts.

[Tiger-Heli]

Idea that comes immediately to mind -

In the BIOS, see if there is a setting for BOOT first from PCI or AGP and set it to PCI.

Also, make sure the onboard video is disabled, preferably with a jumper.

What's the model # of the motherboard?

[Fuzzguitar]

Cheers for the replies! Here are some answers of the top off my head;

No, there isn't a BIOS setting to disable on board video.

No, there isn't a jumper on the board or mentioned in manual.

No, onboard performance isn't acceptable. I mean I'm noticing a fair few games dipping bleow or running at half frame rates which I'm sure I've seen running okay on slower PC's.

Yes, I can update BIOS but it's hardly old as it is! Certainly much newer than my Geforce card, plus this PC is bare bones - no modem etc.

Yes, there is another PCI slot to try but slot 1 which I'm using is what the BIOS says to use for video. Plus I gotta break another metal tab off my case just to try it

Yes, I've tried the latest Nvidia drivers which install fine but make no difference. Anyhow, shouldn't it start in safe mode at least without drivers?

Yes, I can try the card in another PC. But I'm 99% sure it will work fine as it always has.

The model number of my board is: GA-7VM400AM(F) VIA KM400A Chipset. Tiger Heli I hope this tells you something that might help.

I just wanna play NBA jam, puzzle bobble 2, mk etc at 60fps.

[SirPeale]

Try the card in another machine first, just to eliminate that possibility.  Things get screwy when you've "bent some pins"

[Tiger-Heli]

The model number of my board is: GA-7VM400AM(F) VIA KM400A Chipset. Tiger Heli I hope this tells you something that might help.

Bad news!

I checked your mobo manual here -
http://america.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/Manual/manual_7vm400am(f)_e.pdf

and there indeed do not appear to be any settings for disabling on-board video - (or even setting how much memory gets assigned to video).  Pretty disappointing.

I also checked Gigabyte support here -

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/FAQ/FAQ_341.htm

and they say:

How to disable onboard VGA in order to install an VGA card?  

 Gigabyte M/B will auto-detect the VGA card since the card pluged, therefore you don't need to change any setting by manual.


I suspect that since the mobo has an AGP slot, they mean the board auto detects the AGP card and you are SOL on using a PCI card, unfortunately.

I would see if someone has a spare AGP card that you could borrow and see if the board will work with that.

If so, I checked www.pricewatch.com and they have a TNT2 32Mb AGP for $13 or an ATI Radeon 7000 32Mb AGP for $28.  Either one would not be a stellar card for MAME, but probably better than what you have.

MAME is not graphics card intensive.  I've gotten fairly good performance with a pre- TNT 4M PCI card before.

FWIW.

[Fuzzguitar]

Thanks everyone and Tiger-Heli in particular!

Unfortunatley something was telling me all along this was the case.

I will pick an AGP card in the near future and maybe I'll post my MAME.ini in the software forum so people can see which
setting might be costing me speed...

The games I mentioned should run full speed with on board video though right?

Whoops, hold those answers until my next post.

Cheers.