PCI Video Trouble

[Slawek B.]

Cheers All,

I have a 16MB AGP card that I want to replace with a 32MB PCI nvidia
geforce2 card. For some reason the system won't post with the PCI video
card in. I tried:

- different PCI slots
- disabled all serials and parallel to free up IRQs
- changed the start up sequence from AGP to PCI
- unpluged HD, CDROM, and took out all other cards

I've searched the net left and right, and found that people are running
PCI vids with my type of MB (Abit BE6-II). I know the card works as I
saw it running in another machine. When I start the machine, I hear the
ram count, and that's it. No beeps, no nothing.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Slawek

 

[lorisarvendu]

Cheers All,

I have a 16MB AGP card that I want to replace with a 32MB PCI nvidia
geforce2 card. For some reason the system won't post with the PCI video
card in. I tried:

- different PCI slots
- disabled all serials and parallel to free up IRQs
- changed the start up sequence from AGP to PCI
- unpluged HD, CDROM, and took out all other cards

I've searched the net left and right, and found that people are running
PCI vids with my type of MB (Abit BE6-II). I know the card works as I
saw it running in another machine. When I start the machine, I hear the
ram count, and that's it. No beeps, no nothing.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Slawek

You've seen the card running in another machine. But have you tried
the card in the other machine again, after it fails in your machine?

We've had cases like this where I work, in which you struggle to
diagnose why it worked in machine A, but doesn't in machine B.
Finally you put it back in machine A...and it doesn't work anymore.
In fact it doesn't work at all, because it's broken on the way between
the two machines.

The other possibility...you haven't been overclocking, and the PCI bus
is running too fast?

DaveB

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Slawek B." said in news:SpPUb.407382$JQ1.261845@pd7tw1no:

Cheers All,

I have a 16MB AGP card that I want to replace with a 32MB PCI nvidia
geforce2 card. For some reason the system won't post with the PCI
video card in. I tried:

- different PCI slots
- disabled all serials and parallel to free up IRQs
- changed the start up sequence from AGP to PCI
- unpluged HD, CDROM, and took out all other cards

I've searched the net left and right, and found that people are
running PCI vids with my type of MB (Abit BE6-II). I know the card
works as I saw it running in another machine. When I start the
machine, I hear the ram count, and that's it. No beeps, no nothing.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Slawek

Do the LEDs on the keyboard flash at bootup? The keyboard and its
controller usually get initialized just after initializing the CPU and
before the video gets checked. If you remove the PCI video card, do the
keyboard LEDs then flash?

Remove the PCI video card and use a flashlight to ensure you didn't jam some
lint, dust, or other debris into the slot.

Since the case was opened, have you gone back inside to check for loose or
pulled cables? Checked the power supply connector is pushed all the way
onto the motherboard connector? Is the CPU locked down okay, the heatsink
pressed against it, and its fan spinning when you power up? This appears,
according to the manual available at Abit-USA.com, to be a Pentium3 Slot1
motherboard. Make sure the cartridge is pushed all the way into the slot,
especially if not using the hold-down brackets.

Are the CPU and any connected 3-wire case fans spinning? I don't know if
the BIOS for this mobo has settings to prevent power up if the fans don't
spin.

Can you hear the hard drive(s) spin up on power up (so you get an indicator
that the power supply is actually supplying juice? I'll assume you've
already checked the power supply is plugged in and any rocker switch on the
back to enable power is in the On position.

When playing around inside the box, did you make sure the power cord was
plugged into the wall and into a 3-wire outlet (so it was grounded), touch
the case to discharge yourself of any static electricity, and make sure you
didn't walk away and come back without touching the case first? Hopefully
you didn't zap something inside. When you plugged in the PCI video card,
and after equalizing yourself to the computer case to prevent a static
discharge, did you unplug the power cord from the power supply (to ensure
there was no power to the motherboard)? This is an ATX-style motherboard so
some power (5V) is still supplied to the mobo when you have powered off the
system using the front pushbutton.

Anything connected to the mobo's TSYS2 header (to attach an additional
thermistor on a thermal cable for temperature sensing)? There is also a JP2
header to enable/disable power recovery although the manual didn't mention
what that does (and I didn't bother to hunt around for a description).

Temporarily remove the 2-wire connector on the motherboard for the Reset
switch. I have seen the switch get stuck on. Also make sure you have
nothing attached to the backpanel connectors other than the monitor,
keyboard, and mouse (really don't even need the mouse at this point), and
the power cord, of course.

Try clearing the CMOS copy of the BIOS. Remove the power cord from the
power supply first (so no +5V gets supplied to the mobo) and short the CCMOS
jumper on the mobo for at least 10 seconds.

 

[Slawek B.]

Yup... I tried it in two machines about half a year ago. It didn't work.
Took it back to the store where I bought it (it was bought used), and
asked them to try it. Started up like a charm. By the time I go all of
this done, I didn't need the card anymore, but now do again. I am back
to the same problem I had earlier, after which I've seen the card run
elsewhere. The store won't help me at all, and I've since stopped
dealing with them (for many reasons, this one not really being one of
them)... Unfortunatelly I do not have any other PCI vids, or other
machines to try the card in... So frustrating to have this card here,
almost twice as good as my current, unable to use it.

 

[Slawek B.]

Most of the things you mentioned (thank you) I've already tried. When I
plug in the AGP card back, it works fine. Take out the AGP, put in PCI,
nothing. Go back to AGP, all works again. So, nothing wrong with the
power, and such. One thing I will do is check the keyboard lights at
startup with PCI, and see how far things really get. I will also drain
the CMOS, just in case there is something in there acting up. I will
post the results of those two activities... I'm hoping the CMOS clear
will do it...

Because I tried multiple PCI slots, including the ones used by my Sound
Card and Ehternet, I know it's nothing blocking the slot. The sound card
and the NIC work fine when they get put back into those slots...

*Vanguard* wrote:

 

[Slawek B.]

Upon draining the CMOS, nothing has changed. PCI didn't wake the
monitor, the RAM counted/checked, the HD powered up, keyboard lights did
not flash. Just sat there like that... Put back the AGP, Poof, it all
came on.

 

[Paul L]

did you actually move the monitor cable to the new vid card?

 

[Slawek B.]

You mean as in actually plugged it in? If so, the answer is yes.

 

[Paul L]

Upon draining the CMOS, nothing has changed. PCI didn't wake the
monitor, the RAM counted/checked, snip

what do you mean the ram counted/checked, how would you know that if the
monitor was off?

BTW, the hd will spin up as long as it has 12v

 

[Tasslehoff]

Have you tried a different PCI slot, which one is it in ATM.

 

[Slawek B.]

I can hear the RAM count/check (not sure what it really does during that
time). When I say the HD "powers up", I should have said "seems to
tryaccessing". When i first turn on the power, I can hear it running,
but than the frequency of the noise seems to change a few seconds after
the power has been on. Here I am making another assumption, that there
is an attempt to access the HD? But something shorts it. Windows never
starts in the background...

 

[Slawek B.]

I tried a total of 3 PCI slots, including the one my NIC normally sits
in... so I know I am putting the card into a working slot.

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Slawek B." said in news:RYSUb.421600$ts4.104565@pd7tw3no:

Most of the things you mentioned (thank you) I've already tried. When
I plug in the AGP card back, it works fine. Take out the AGP, put in
PCI, nothing. Go back to AGP, all works again. So, nothing wrong with
the power, and such. One thing I will do is check the keyboard lights
at startup with PCI, and see how far things really get. I will also
drain the CMOS, just in case there is something in there acting up. I
will post the results of those two activities... I'm hoping the CMOS
clear will do it...

Because I tried multiple PCI slots, including the ones used by my
Sound Card and Ehternet, I know it's nothing blocking the slot. The
sound card and the NIC work fine when they get put back into those
slots...

*Vanguard* wrote:

When you have the AGP video card in the AGP slot and it boots up, go into
BIOS and configure the primary video display to be PCI instead of AGP. Then
power down. Put in the PCI card. Then see if it powers up. Maybe the BIOS
is stuck trying to find a video card in the AGP slot because that is where
it was configured to look.

 

[*Vanguard*]

"Slawek B." said in news:SpPUb.407382$JQ1.261845@pd7tw1no:

Cheers All,

I have a 16MB AGP card that I want to replace with a 32MB PCI nvidia
geforce2 card. For some reason the system won't post with the PCI
video card in. I tried:

- different PCI slots
- disabled all serials and parallel to free up IRQs
- changed the start up sequence from AGP to PCI
- unpluged HD, CDROM, and took out all other cards

I've searched the net left and right, and found that people are
running PCI vids with my type of MB (Abit BE6-II). I know the card
works as I saw it running in another machine. When I start the
machine, I hear the ram count, and that's it. No beeps, no nothing.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.

Slawek

The system boots okay with the AGP video card in the AGP slot. The system
does not bootup when you insert the PCI video card into any slot. Hmm, how
do you know the PCI video card is any good?

Also, why are you switching from an AGP to PCI video card? Yeah, the PCI
video card has more VRAM to hold more textures but the AGP video card will
run much faster.

 

[Stacey]

Also, why are you switching from an AGP to PCI video card? Yeah, the PCI
video card has more VRAM to hold more textures but the AGP video card will
run much faster.

Depends on the card, I have some really crappy AGP cards that would be much
slower than the PCI card he's wanting to use!

The AGP won't "run faster", it can just comunicate across the buss faster
if and when it needs to. But I agree, sounds like something wrong with
the video card to me as well.

 

[Stacey]

I tried a total of 3 PCI slots, including the one my NIC normally sits
in... so I know I am putting the card into a working slot.

Then the card is toast. It should at least post.

 

[Stacey]

When you have the AGP video card in the AGP slot and it boots up, go into
BIOS and configure the primary video display to be PCI instead of AGP.
Then
power down. Put in the PCI card. Then see if it powers up. Maybe the
BIOS is stuck trying to find a video card in the AGP slot because that is
where it was configured to look.

I think most boards are made with this setting to chose which you want to be
primary if you have 2 video cards in the box at once. If it doesn't find an
AGP, it looks for a PCI iregardless of where you have that set. Then again
some weird boards might choke, seems odd as how could you set it up if you
didn't have an AGP card?

 

[Slawek B.]

Already tried that... All there really is in the CMOS, is the "sequence"
to init a vc when more than one is present, but I still put it to PCI.
Also tried draining the CMOS, with no luck.

 

[Slawek B.]

After I had this trouble about half a year ago, I took the card back
where I bought it.. they tried it for me, and it worked. Since then, I
didn't need the card, and put it aside... now I was trying to use it
again, and have the same problems as before...

I wanted to use this card till I get my new PC.. right now I am using a
Savage4 card not supported by many games like MOH. This GeForce 2 card
should let me run those games...

 

[Slawek B.]

That would be my guess, but I have seen it run on another machine, after
experiencing these problems on my PC in the past... I didn't try back
than all that i tried now, and I suppose the card could have died
since... but the odds are slim.