FAO IT Bods - installing 3D graphics card

[arry]

hi guys

need some advice - and im uuuuseless at IT (amongst other things).

I have an AMD Duron 850 with 128meg ram running windows XP

Currently have an onboard AGP 16bit graphics - trying to install an AGP 32meg GeForce affair.

Have installed card, disabled onboard AGP in BIOS (ie turning it over to PCI - only 2 options available), loaded drivers, put monitor cable to new card but still have no picture :(

anything anyone can recommend??

[Papa Lazarou]

Make sure card seated properly firstly!

Any beeps or anything when you turn it on? By onboard 16 bit I assume you mean its built into the motherboard? Does switching the cable to the built in VGA port (with the AGP card still in place) result in a picture?

[arry]

Originally posted by Papa Lazarou
Make sure card seated properly firstly!

Any beeps or anything when you turn it on? By onboard 16 bit I assume you mean its built into the motherboard? Does switching the cable to the built in VGA port (with the AGP card still in place) result in a picture?

card is defo seated properly - ive kicked it into place many a time :D

nope, no beeps - the monitor power light just flashes and comes up blank :(

Yeah onboard is built in to mother board

what do you mean by switching the cable - what cable:eek: (i;m new to this:o )

cheers!

[andyf]

I'm not sure if I'm reading you right, but you've disabled AGP by switching to PCI? You'll be wanting to disable the AGP card somewhere else in the Bios, but have it use AGP as the preferred card, otherwise it won't try and get a signal from the Geforce as it's not a PCI card.

PS. if it's onboard it won't be AGP - AGP is the unique slot purely for graphics cards

[Martin T]

Computer make any noises? I mean beeps. (assuming the internal speaker is plugged in.
I dont like to be the bearer of bad news but your card is probably fooked.
If it wont work in 640x480x16cols at 60 Hz (the windows default) Then its almost certainly fooked. Also, check the cables AGAIN. You may well have forgot to plug the power for the monitor back in or some such. Believe me even the pro's do it:)
If thatsa not the problem, then look at the plug on the cable and make sure none of the pins are bent.
Finally MAKE SURE ITS SEATED PROPERLY. THEN MAKE SURE AGAIN. Thats got the be the most common cause of fooked AGP cards.

[arry]

Originally posted by andyf
I'm not sure if I'm reading you right, but you've disabled AGP by switching to PCI? You'll be wanting to disable the AGP card somewhere else in the Bios, but have it use AGP as the preferred card, otherwise it won't try and get a signal from the Geforce

PS. if it's onboard it won't be AGP - AGP is the unique slot purely for graphics cards

do you know where else in the bios? the pci plug in and play options were the only place i got anything close

you may well be right about the onboard card:o

[Papa Lazarou]

Originally posted by arry
Yeah onboard is built in to mother board

what do you mean by switching the cable - what cable:eek: (i;m new to this:o )

cheers!

I meant switching the monitor cable from the Geforce to the motherboard VGA port just to see if it was still outputting from there with the GF in place.

[arry]

Originally posted by Martin T
Computer make any noises? I mean beeps. (assuming the internal speaker is plugged in.
I dont like to be the bearer of bad news but your card is probably fooked.
If it wont work in 640x480x16cols at 60 Hz (the windows default) Then its almost certainly fooked. Also, check the cables AGAIN. You may well have forgot to plug the power for the monitor back in or some such. Believe me even the pro's do it:)
If thatsa not the problem, then look at the plug on the cable and make sure none of the pins are bent.
Finally MAKE SURE ITS SEATED PROPERLY. THEN MAKE SURE AGAIN. Thats got the be the most common cause of fooked AGP cards.

nope - defo seated properly - and defo got the leads in right.

This is the 3rd card ive tried - couldnt get any of em to work :( dont ask why ive tried so many, long story ;)

[arry]

Originally posted by Papa Lazarou
I meant switching the monitor cable from the Geforce to the motherboard VGA port just to see if it was still outputting from there with the GF in place.

yes still outputting, thats where my monitor is plugged into as we speak :) GeForce card is in there but not being recognised

[Papa Lazarou]

Originally posted by arry
do you know where else in the bios? the pci plug in and play options were the only place i got anything close

you may well be right about the onboard card:o

Usually they have a setting for primary graphics card which will be AGP or PCI. This means if you are lucky enough to have two monitors this selects the one that the BIOS screen etc is output to.

This sounds like the setting you have changed.

Now they vary a lot, but on my Bios there is a menu called "On Board Peripherals" and this is where you can enable or disable stuff like on board sound, modem, IDE etc. I presume on board VGA would be there if I had it. See if there is something similar anywhere..

[Papa Lazarou]

Originally posted by arry
yes still outputting, thats where my monitor is plugged into as we speak :) GeForce card is in there but not being recognised

At all? Not even with a big exclamation mark against something in Windows Device Manager?

[arry]

nooope, nothing at all, been staring at device manager for hours and all it notices is my onboard :(

[Papa Lazarou]

Errrrrm.. I think it should have at least something there :confused: No sign of windows going through "New Hardware Detected" routine when you first started up was there?

Any fans on the 3D Card? If so are they spinning?

[arry]

no and no on the last two questions....

and no, New hardware device not finding it automatically or manually - leading me to believe that there is something wrong with the AGP slot itself the more i come to think of it :(

what could it be!!!! :mad: I only want to play GTA3 :(

[Cookie]

How old is the mother board, what is the make and model of it and the exact make and model of the card.


If the motherboard is old it might be that the board is only 2X AGP compatible and the card is 4/8X AGP compatible.

Although most card will just work.

Also some motherboards will have a jmper that will need fiddling with to disable the onboard graphics.

C.

[Papa Lazarou]

It sounds a possibility. Unless having the on board graphics enabled just completely disables the AGP slot or something? Sounds unlikely but you never know.

[Martin T]

Arry you need someone around to have a look mate. Where abouts do you live? Personally My moneys on you have wrecked your AGP slot not, but thats still a guess based on the info U have posted.

[arry]

fcuk, got me stumped on the mother board.... its not that old tho - id say late 00 or early 01.

the cards, well ive tried an nvidea TNT 16m card, a GeForce 2, and more recently a GeForce 4..

at present trying to get TNT to work :(

can find out the motherboard specs in morning if important or is there some obvious way i can tell? ie device manager?

[arry]

Originally posted by Martin T
Arry you need someone around to have a look mate. Where abouts do you live? Personally My moneys on you have wrecked your AGP slot not, but thats still a guess based on the info U have posted.

im in basildon mate so a fair way away from yourself - dont think theres anyone clued up IT wise in and around my area :(

[Cookie]

No easy way to tell you would need to have the manual that came with it or hope for a sticker on the board.

C.

[Martin T]

Originally posted by Cookie
How old is the mother board, what is the make and model of it and the exact make and model of the card.


If the motherboard is old it might be that the board is only 2X AGP compatible and the card is 4/8X AGP compatible.



C.
Not possible
AGP 2.0 and 3.0 are all backwards compat. with AGP1.0

[arry]

Originally posted by Papa Lazarou
It sounds a possibility. Unless having the on board graphics enabled just completely disables the AGP slot or something? Sounds unlikely but you never know.

that was my second thought - but i cant figure out how to disable the blighter!!!

if i do work out how to, what will happen when i start my pc? will it just look "amiga-ish"? with sh!t graphics? Dont want to go turning it off if i cant manage to get the bugger back on again!!

[Martin T]

Originally posted by arry
im in basildon mate so a fair way away from yourself - dont think theres anyone clued up IT wise in and around my area :(
If ur gonna be near colchester anytime soon then gis a shout, and you can bring your computer and card round and I'll be able to tell you pretty quick whats wrong. I got loads of tools and spare parts, see.:D

[arry]

Martin

Excellent mate! :D

i'm from colchester originally myself and my bro still lives there - will be visiting him sometime soon so will give you a shout then :D

I guess GTA3 will just have to wait for now :D

thanks again
aaron

[Cookie]

Not true i have an S3 Trio AGP card that will not work in my current pc , it is AGP 1X card , where as my Radeon 8500 is 2/4X.

The radeon is not compatible with a AGP 1X mother board either

only 2 or 2/4.

C.

[Papa Lazarou]

Might be able to find the make and model of motherboard printed on the board itself. That would be helpful, as you could then try and download a manual for it.

If you can't find this printed on the board then a program like Sisoft Sandra ( http://www.sisoftware.co.uk ) should be able to identify the model of board.

[Martin T]

@ arry
PM me but give me at least a days notice as my work is a bit irregular.

@cookie
Prolly coz 1x is ancient and only compat. with 2x.

Both 2x and 1x are part of the AGP1.0 specs, but I havent dealt with 1x parts in a long time.

I would love to know how they "Octuple pump" an interface though. I know double, and two ways of quad pumping, but octuple has to bu surely just a marketing blag.

[arry]

Originally posted by Martin T
@ arry
PM me but give me at least a days notice as my work is a bit irregular.

@cookie
Prolly coz 1x is ancient and only compat. with 2x.

Both 2x and 1x are part of the AGP1.0 specs, but I havent dealt with 1x parts in a long time.

I would love to know how they "Octuple pump" an interface though. I know double, and two ways of quad pumping, but octuple has to bu surely just a marketing blag.

and i would love to know wtf you guys are talking about!! :D

cheers martin, will let you know in advance :)

[Cookie]

some GeForce 4 cards are 8X, (Can't give any more than that on them as i only buy ATI cards)

C.

[Cookie]

Heres the spec for 8X

www.intel.com/technology/agp/downloads/agp8x09.pdf.

C.

[Martin T]

Originally posted by Cookie
some GeForce 4 cards are 8X, (Can't give any more than that on them as i only buy ATI cards)

C.

The MX440-8x
The Ti4200-8x
and the Ti4800 series cards.
Funny how the most popular ones had a quick bodge for AGP 8x which is more of a marketing gimmick that performance enhancer right now:rolleyes:
Some people are just impressed by figures they dont understand (i.e. most of the computer buying public)

If only my 'puter had a bit more then a 1Ghz P3 then I would buy one of those Radeon 9500Pro's. Tehy look quite good for teh money.

[Martin T]

Originally posted by Cookie
Heres the spec for 8X

www.intel.com/technology/agp/downloads/agp8x09.pdf.

C.

Looks like intel have moved the document:rolleyes:
But form the specs on the intel site it looks like they used strobing to increase the bitrate. must be a mission designing the cards for that kind of interface as the tolerances must be incredibly tight.

[realityx]

Originally posted by arry
card is defo seated properly - ive kicked it into place many a time :D

nope, no beeps - the monitor power light just flashes and comes up blank :(

Yeah onboard is built in to mother board

what do you mean by switching the cable - what cable:eek: (i;m new to this:o )

cheers!

if your monitor power light just flashes, this basically
means that it is not picking up a signal from the
agp card, there must be an onboard jumper which
will let you enable/disable onboard agp, if your running winxp
it will automatically see the geforce if installed correctly
and automatically load the drivers for it,
the best way to to find out if your m/board has an enable disable
jumper for your onboard agp, is too look in the m/board
manual, if you still got it.
if you intend to run gta3 on a 850 cpu with 128meg of ram&
geforce 2 mx it will run slow!..if you get it working make
sure you run it at low resolution and low detail level, winxp loves memory I,d say 512 meg is really what you need to run
winxp nice and smooth...and 256meg really should be minimun
on xp if you intend to run games.

[Mark]

Arry

I'm in Grays if you want me to look at it ? Was in Bas last night as well soerting my mates PC out, if only i'd known :D

I've never had to change the Bios when fitting a AGP car on a board with on board graphics before :confused:

Offer is there tho, can come roung Sunday if you like ;)

[AshT_200]

Originally posted by andyf
PS. if it's onboard it won't be AGP - AGP is the unique slot purely for graphics cards

Not true, my laptop has AGP Graphics and so do the Compaq Deskpros that we are using and they are all onboard.

[realityx]

Originally posted by Nismo Mark
Arry

I'm in Grays if you want me to look at it ? Was in Bas last night as well soerting my mates PC out, if only i'd known :D

I've never had to change the Bios when fitting a AGP car on a board with on board graphics before :confused:

Offer is there tho, can come roung Sunday if you like ;)

it depends on the m/b,
nowadays most m/boards are jumperless
with a pure pnp bios, even then usually
you do need to go into the bios to disable
the onboard agp and perhaps
enable the external agp slot(unless the bios ver will do this automaticaly) which i doubt coz if this was the case with
arry,s m/board he wouldnt be having the prob that he is,
one things for sure since winxp isnt detecting his gf card
its ethier the bios , on board jumpers if appicable, or
the geforce itslef which is at fault, a long shot guess,
would be the psu. depending how many devices
his running of it and how many watts it is.
anyways gl in gettting it going,
and when you do..trying playing the game mafia,
its like grand theft auto 3....only better:D

[Dave_S]

Almost ALL mobos even if "jumperless" will disable onboard gfx with a jumper.

Turn off pc and look at mobo. Look for the jumper that says "video" or similar. Move it over to pins 2-3 probably. Then plug your AGP card in and get into windows. Thats it. Check your manual for the positiion of jumper.

Dave

[andyf]

With all you people in essex, why won't someone go round and help the man? :) Just don't send Carter.

[Mark]

Well i have offered :p

[Dave_S]

I would but I live in Colchester!!!!

Dave