norwood micro video card

[djc]

I picked up a relatively cheap video card and didn't realize until now that
is is the 'compusa' generic brand. It is a Norwood Micro Geforce FX 5500
(256MB). Now I'm worried.

I am in the middle of setting up a used pc (IBM NetVista 8305-N9U). This
machine had a small hard drive and integrated video so I got a 250GB hard
drive (WD WD2500JB) and the above mentioned video card.

Machine was booting fine (just to DOS command prompt, no real OS installed
yet). POST took a few seconds and it was up. After pluging in this AGP video
card and the hard drive post takes like 10 times longer!

My first thought is that it probably is the video card although I did not
take it out to see... XP is installing right now.

anyone comments on Norwood Micro stuff? Am I asking for trouble?

 

[Jim Macklin]

Until you have Windows booting and install the correct
drivers I wouldn't worry about it. Also, did you check the
BIOS to see if the on-board graphics need to be set any
particular way when you add an AGP card?


|I picked up a relatively cheap video card and didn't
realize until now that
| is is the 'compusa' generic brand. It is a Norwood Micro
Geforce FX 5500
| (256MB). Now I'm worried.
|
| I am in the middle of setting up a used pc (IBM NetVista
8305-N9U). This
| machine had a small hard drive and integrated video so I
got a 250GB hard
| drive (WD WD2500JB) and the above mentioned video card.
|
| Machine was booting fine (just to DOS command prompt, no
real OS installed
| yet). POST took a few seconds and it was up. After pluging
in this AGP video
| card and the hard drive post takes like 10 times longer!
|
| My first thought is that it probably is the video card
although I did not
| take it out to see... XP is installing right now.
|
| anyone comments on Norwood Micro stuff? Am I asking for
trouble?
|
|

 

[Yves Leclerc]

This generic brand is using a known brand name chipset. nVidia makes the base
chipset for all the GeForce cards, including the FX 5500. You could always
use their (nVidia) reference drivers (found on www.nvidia.com.)

It seems that you might have some conflict in the NetVista BIOS. Make sure
that you disable the on-board video card (how????) and make the AGP slot as
the primary video interface.

 

[djc]

thanks for the replies Jim and Yves.

Ya, I thought I was ok since it is an Nvidia chipset but once I heard the
Norwood Micro brand was COMPUSA I got worried.

The delay in POST is not happening anymore. Before adding the new hardware I
reset the BIOS to the factory defaults for a fresh start (since it is a used
pc). I did find a video setting where I specified to use the agp video
instead of the integrated. I also found a POST mode that I changed to
'quick'. It was set to 'normal' or 'enchanced' or something... This was
probably set to 'quick' before I reset to defaults. Now the delay is gone,
boots right up. I'm not sure which setting made the difference since I
changed them both at the same time although I think it was likely the change
to 'quick' mode POST. It probably stopped testing memory at POST, which I
have 1 GB of, so it likely really speeded things up. It seems to work fine
now though and I'm in a bit of a rush so I'm not going to experiment at the
moment... maybe later.

thanks for the replies. Its appreciated.