ATI Radeon 9200 BIOS and XP Startup Problems w/ HP F50 LCD Panel

[Alan Spicer]

Hello,

I've got a brand new ATI Radeon 9250 card. (PCI card).

HP a1010n PC with onboard Video
HP F50 LCD Panel Monitor

I bought it for a special application to use the S-Video Output for TV.
(Already had an RF Modulator and RF TV distribution system on a boat.)

Before I installed the new ATI Radeon I went in the BIOS Setup and set the
Primary video to be the PCI slot for the new video to fire up. On turning on
the PC I immediately had a got weird blotchy distorted color screens on the
HP 50 monitor as if the card was at some resolution that the monitor
couldn't handle.

I took the card off site and put it in another older HP Celeron PC and
connected the VGA out to a Compac V700 CRT Monitor. I corrected the
resolution of the ATI card from 640 x 480 by re-enabling the onboard video
and setting it to 1024 x 768. (Plan on doing this back on the boat). Tested
the TV Output through a VCR and everything worked fine on the V700 crt
monitor and the TV Output.

Took it back to the boat and re-enabled the onboard video long enough to fix
the ATI resolution in Windows XP and set the ATI back as primary in both
BIOS and Windows. At this point rebooting worked fine and the HP 50 Monitor
worked fine. Note that I had not tried the TV OUT yet.

After enabling the TV OUT all seemed to work fine as long as we were up and
running in Windows XP. But reboot and the weird corrupted video from the ATI
to the HP F50 monitor was back again. But strangely it is only seeming to be
during the BIOS startup screens and the Windows XP startup screen. After
"Welcome" and the the "Desktop" the video is fine again. (Only that weird
firey melting distorted color video stuff at boot up is very discomforting
for the owner of the yacht. And I don't blame them.)

Has anyone seen this before? ATI Customer Support isn't much help. They
asked me to run a software utility and give them a debug text file ... which
they seemed to do absolutely NOTHING with. I told them a secret, that the
ATI card works fine on my V700 monitor, and it also works fine on another
(Magnavox? TV/Computer Display) special monitor that the customer brought
onboard. ATI has no answer, won't recommend a monitor, won't tell any
technical detail. They are just at the BLAME GAME. "Must be your monitor,
contact HP". "RMA is available if you want it". I ask for monitor
recommended specs or makes / models and I get no answer at all.

(Oh I also tried one time ... disabling the ATI again in BIOS and Windows
and leaving the TV OUT off. Reboot, set the ATI back enable and primary BIOS
and Windows, reboot again. And the card goes back to functioning normally
again even at reboot. So there must be something that goes wrong after TV
OUT has been enabled. Turning TV OUT off doesn't fix it. Only shutting the
card off completely (BIOS/Windows) and then back on again (BIOS and Windows)
gets it out of this trouble.)

Again when the problem exists... I can connect this other flat panel
Magnavox TV thing and the same BIOS and Windows startup screens come through
just fine. It seems to be some resolution/refresh thing that this HP F50
Monitor cannot handle. Also when the TV OUT has been on, but it is turned
off in Windows XP (the Radeon Display Settings Tab) the startup screens
still continue to the TV as well as the monitor (although corrupted to the
monitor screen). That's how I know for sure it is those startup screens
which are causing the corrupted video to the F50 monitor.

If anyone has any ideas I sure would appreciate it. This is the most trouble
I've ever had out of a video card. Please CC: via email if you respond.

Thanks,

 

[x.C]

if he has such a big boat, i wonder why a 9600 is such a pain in the butt.
92xx are know to give lots of problems.

 

[Alan Spicer]

* Who said anyone had a big boat? What if they had it in a big house? Noone
either said anything about 9600 being a pain. Do you suggest that a 9600
won't have this problem? Anyway I bought the card for main sole purpose of
providing TV OUTPUT. I didn't think we needed the best Gamers Card to get a
single simple S-Video output. Even this one seems to me as overkill. This
isn't an application for Super Video Game System. Just simply to repeat the
video out so it can be viewed elsewhere. Anyway IMHO this problem that's
happening shouldn't be happening.

This is in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area. Lot's of boats here. big and
small. This one is like 76 foot. Big is over 100 feet, especially getting
into 200 footers. Should I buy a bigger card to fit in a big boat? ;-)

 

[x.C]

9600 is not a gaming card anymore.
not high end anyway.
turn off the onboad video in the bios.
hint: HP desktops suck ass big time, like any other consumer hp product.
all i am saying is that 9200 might be the worst video card in existence

 

[Ian]

Hello,

I've got a brand new ATI Radeon 9250 card. (PCI card).

HP a1010n PC with onboard Video
HP F50 LCD Panel Monitor

I bought it for a special application to use the S-Video Output for TV.
(Already had an RF Modulator and RF TV distribution system on a boat.)

Before I installed the new ATI Radeon I went in the BIOS Setup and set the
Primary video to be the PCI slot for the new video to fire up. On turning on
the PC I immediately had a got weird blotchy distorted color screens on the
HP 50 monitor as if the card was at some resolution that the monitor
couldn't handle.

I took the card off site and put it in another older HP Celeron PC and
connected the VGA out to a Compac V700 CRT Monitor. I corrected the
resolution of the ATI card from 640 x 480 by re-enabling the onboard video
and setting it to 1024 x 768. (Plan on doing this back on the boat). Tested
the TV Output through a VCR and everything worked fine on the V700 crt
monitor and the TV Output.

Took it back to the boat and re-enabled the onboard video long enough to fix
the ATI resolution in Windows XP and set the ATI back as primary in both
BIOS and Windows. At this point rebooting worked fine and the HP 50 Monitor
worked fine. Note that I had not tried the TV OUT yet.

After enabling the TV OUT all seemed to work fine as long as we were up and
running in Windows XP. But reboot and the weird corrupted video from the ATI
to the HP F50 monitor was back again. But strangely it is only seeming to be
during the BIOS startup screens and the Windows XP startup screen. After
"Welcome" and the the "Desktop" the video is fine again. (Only that weird
firey melting distorted color video stuff at boot up is very discomforting
for the owner of the yacht. And I don't blame them.)

Has anyone seen this before? ATI Customer Support isn't much help. They
asked me to run a software utility and give them a debug text file ... which
they seemed to do absolutely NOTHING with. I told them a secret, that the
ATI card works fine on my V700 monitor, and it also works fine on another
(Magnavox? TV/Computer Display) special monitor that the customer brought
onboard. ATI has no answer, won't recommend a monitor, won't tell any
technical detail. They are just at the BLAME GAME. "Must be your monitor,
contact HP". "RMA is available if you want it". I ask for monitor
recommended specs or makes / models and I get no answer at all.

(Oh I also tried one time ... disabling the ATI again in BIOS and Windows
and leaving the TV OUT off. Reboot, set the ATI back enable and primary BIOS
and Windows, reboot again. And the card goes back to functioning normally
again even at reboot. So there must be something that goes wrong after TV
OUT has been enabled. Turning TV OUT off doesn't fix it. Only shutting the
card off completely (BIOS/Windows) and then back on again (BIOS and Windows)
gets it out of this trouble.)

Again when the problem exists... I can connect this other flat panel
Magnavox TV thing and the same BIOS and Windows startup screens come through
just fine. It seems to be some resolution/refresh thing that this HP F50
Monitor cannot handle. Also when the TV OUT has been on, but it is turned
off in Windows XP (the Radeon Display Settings Tab) the startup screens
still continue to the TV as well as the monitor (although corrupted to the
monitor screen). That's how I know for sure it is those startup screens
which are causing the corrupted video to the F50 monitor.

If anyone has any ideas I sure would appreciate it. This is the most trouble
I've ever had out of a video card. Please CC: via email if you respond.

Thanks,

I've read through that a few times and I don't understand. Firstly, the
driver should allow you to set and store independent configurations for
display 1, the monitor, and display 2, the TV. You should not have to
watch the monitor at TV settings, therefore, and similarly, the TV
should come up with its correct settings even if the monitor is also
connected to the VGA out. How are you connecting the TV, are you using
the Composite or S-Video out sockets? You are not trying to use one of
the VGA/DVI connectors with an adaptor are you?

Let's break this down step-by-step.


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[Alan Spicer]

Thanks for the insight. The onboard video didn't really seem to be "turn
off"'able. Only option was which card to START with. Options were PCI or
Onboard. The machine didn't have an AGP slot at all. At which point that and
Celeron made me call the machine "Low End". Do you really think turning off
onboard will solve THIS problem?

What I find really strange is the following:

1.) Other monitors other than the HP F50 (two tried, Compaq crt model V700
[I'm using that one now at home/shop] and that other TV LCD thing that
*they* had.) were able to display the startup screens just fine. But the HP
F50 has a hell of a time with it.

2.) The same problem initially happened when installing the 9250 Radeon card
which was resolved by changing it from 640 x 480 resolution to 1024 x 769
resolution in Windows XP.

3.) Prior to turning on the TV OUT the problem does not exist. Turning on
the TV OUT, regardless of wether it is turned back off later in the ATI
displays tab, does not really turn off TV OUT completely. TV out continues
quite clearly for the Startup Screens. And the problem starts after this act
of turning on TV OUT.

Something seems to get SET when TV OUT is enabled. Something seems to get
stuck set on even once it is turned back off. That something seems to have
to do with monitor capabilities that the HP F50 flat panel just can't
handle.

* To "someone" this means something. I just haven't found the right person
yet. ATI is probably forwarding me to outsourced support and they could care
less about my problem. I'm pretty technical myself. I just haven't been able
to find the right "switch" to throw (either software or hardware) to solve
the problem.

So far they boat owner and captain are willing to put up with the startup
issue, although it is ugly, as long as everything works after that.
Everything does seem to work after that. I suggested buying another monitor
but I've been unable to find the exact specification to recommend to get
them out of this problem. ATI gave no answer on monitor spec or model
recommendation requests. I mean NO answer at all. They ignored the question.
Like they ignored many questions. This kind of shee ite is enough to make
many people buy another brand. I wonder if Nvidia is any better. My Riva
TNT2 MODEL 64 PRO certainly isn't high end ... but it's sure been good to
me.

Last time I visited them they weren't in the mood to spend any more money.
But I'd still like to be able to suggest a monitor (flat panel lcd) that
would be able to handle this, without spending any more time ... because I'm
at the point of starting to lose money if I invest any more on-site time on
it.

....anyway, thanks for jumping in there and giving some advice/opinions.
Sometimes people can try so hard to save money on computer hardware that
they end up spending more money (or time and aggravation) because of it.
Unfortunately often computers and monitors are already owned when you walk
on the scene.

---
Alan Spicer ([email protected])
DBA Alan Spicer Telcom
Computer Services, Wired/Wireless Networking,
Marine Cell/Sat/Landline Communications,
Marine Internet Access

http://telecom.dyndns.biz/

 

[Alan Spicer]

* I don't normally bottom post but I'm gonna reply within your message as
quoted. Thanks for the reply:

---
Alan Spicer ([email protected])

I've read through that a few times and I don't understand. Firstly, the
driver should allow you to set and store independent configurations for
display 1, the monitor, and display 2, the TV.

* It gave me 3 actually in Display Settings. I have at times deleted 1 of
them

1.) Plug-n-Play Monitor on ATI Radeon 9250
2.) Plug-n-Play Monitor on Intel Graphics (onboard video this is disabled)
3.) Plug-n-Play Monitor on ATI Radeon 9250 (last I left this is deleted)

I've deleted the 3rd, or sometimes disabled it. I disable the 2nd (onboard
video)

When the TV Out is enabled from the Advanced, ATI "displays" tab and it is
OK'd and closed #1 changes:

1.) (Multiple-Monitors) on ATI Radeon 9250

The Advanced, ATI "displays" tab seems to be the place to enable TV OUT
monitor or not. There is no other TV Monitor which appears. * Unless this is
my mistake right here. The 3 are all supposed to exist. I am supposed to
configure the TV OUT on the #3 one, but not on the #1 one?

But I don't think that is possible. Out of three ONE has to be the Primary
Display which holds the Windows Desktop normally. If you enable other ones
they can only be "Extended Desktops" and you cannot see the main things in
Windows from them. I cannot seem to have two Primary Display out of the 3.
(assume #2 onboard is disabled).

You should not have to watch the monitor at TV settings, therefore, and
similarly, the TV should come up with its correct settings even if the
monitor is also connected to the VGA out.

* I would tend to agree. But all I come up with is 1 Primary Display which
has in the Advanced, (ATI tabs) Displays ... the capability of turning on TV
output.

How are you connecting the TV, are you using the Composite or S-Video out
sockets?

* I've tested both. Off site I ran it here with Composite Video Out through
a VCR to a TV. The only problem I saw was the "Video Overlay" you have to
turn off Video Overlay to the Monitor in order to view MOVIES on the TV
screen. I don't remember exactly where that was but I know I had to keep
toggling it to change the video of movies between the monitor or the TV
screen. (I assume that's a different issue, but I haven't explored it in
depth. I assume if I installed on a different computer here, and then went
back to the site [a yacht in a marina] that the drivers install there would
reset all of the settings. Anyway I'm pretty sure I left the overlay back on
the monitor after testing off site.)

On the actual site we are using the S-Video Output for TV. Because we
already had an RF Modulator that takes S-Video inputs only.

You are not trying to use one of the VGA/DVI connectors with an adaptor
are you?

* Not using any adaptors at all. The video jack on back of ATI Radeon 9250
PCI is a Standard VGA monitor jack. The other end is the same, standard VGA
monitor jack. No DVI is in use. We are using normal Analog.

Let's break this down step-by-step.

* I hope I've laid it out pretty good. Maybe you are on to something here,
or helping me be on to something. Why is the installation creating 2 ATI in
the Display properties in addition to the Onboard Intel Video? Is one of
them supposed to be configured independantly as the TV OUTPUT and the other
as the MONITOR output? If so, how do you get them both to be a Primary
Display in Windows XP? It doesn't seem possible.

I'm gonna read again the manual for the ATI 9250 and see if I see anything
there. Thanks for the reply and thoughts and questions.