ROLLER's new video card

[jjmcgarvey]

Hey Roller,
I saw your posting at the Gen. I didn’t want to answer you there because most of the people there are well past my state of knowledge. I will give you my thoughts on what you described. I think that your previous connection to the monitor was to your 6200 PCI video card. Basically, except for EAW, every thing ran OK. You put in your new (5200) PCI card and connected your monitor cable to that. Essentially, you get no video output. That is probably caused by having one model of card installed and the drivers for a different card installed to run it.

Until you get reliable directions from someone very knowledgeable, I would not try to do any irreversible changes. Here is something that you can experiment with. Do you have another video connector on the motherboard? If you do, this is a method that can get the job done. Try to boot your system up in safe mode. I assume that you have done this at one time or another. You come up with very basic software. If you can do this ok, power down and pull your video card and connect to your onboard video. Boot up in safe mode. If you can get your video out put going ok than you probably can come up in normal move and have a video output displayed.

The probable correct procedure is to be in that display configuration as the default display. In other words you want to get that display even when the PCI card is put back in. When you get that condition, you remove the drivers for the 6200 card. I believe that I have a 5200 PCI card on my system. Remember that I have Win98 running. The procedure that I followed is to copy the drivers onto my system but not install them. Then put the card in and you should get the “new hardware found” procedure. Cancel your way out of that. Then double click on the new driver file and it should install OK. Next power down and connect to the new video card. It should run OK. There is a possibility that it might be necessary to run a driver removal program but with a different model card, it probably won’t be necessary.

Jack

[Roller]

Hi Jack,
and thanks!
I DID try to connect to the onboard video connector and also got a blank screen,
but I believe it is disabled. I will try in the morning to see if I can boot up in safe mode.
(I believe you hold the F8 key down when you turn it on, then the option to boot in safe-
mode should come up.) I agree, that should work..
thanks,
Roller

[jjmcgarvey]

Hey  Roller,
If you can’t get a video display with the onboard connection & safe mode boot up, you may have to go into the bios. With my system that requires you to hold the “delete” key down while booting up. When I go into the bios, I keep lots of very clear notes about what I find and what are the existing or default settings. Anyway restore the setup with the PCI connection and make sure everything is working OK before you reboot to get into the bios. After you look into ALL of the bios sections, you should have found some settings that deal with the video display. The pertinent setting on my bios is a toggle for selecting between PCI or AFG display. You will probably  find it set for PCI. Another setting on my Bios is a toggle for AUTO AFG selection. This toggle will allow you to put a video card in the AFG slot and the system will use that if it is present. I will repeat, take lots of clear notes about what you see and do. I do not trust my memory on stuff like this. The main object right now is to be able to get a display when your present PCI card is removed.
Jack

[Roller]

Hi Jack,
to make a long story short, I uninstalled the 6200 drivers and installed the
5200 drivers in safe mode, and still got a blank screen. So, in safe-mode,
I went to device manager, display adapters, and saw the 5200 and
VIA/S36 Unichrome Pro 16P. I disabled the S36 and rebooted, and the 5200
works fine and allows all resolutions.

However, as with my old computer, the 5200 also gives the 7217 error......
but on my old computer I installed an XTreme-G driver and the error was gone
and EAW ran fine. But when I installed the XTreme-G driver on this computer,
I could not get decent screen resolution. Nor did it offer all choices.
I'm still experimenting and I'll let you know if I get EAW and my resolutions to work.
Roller

[jjmcgarvey]

Nope.......... 
get 7217 error anyway.......... 
Oh well, I tried........
AO

Are you going to quit trying or are you interested in trying a new approach?
Jack

[Roller]

Hi Jack,
of COURSE I'm interested in trying anything to make EAW work!
I have the 5200 working AND the XTreme-G 78.03 driver working properly,
but I still get the 7217 error.
Also, I get a windows error sound when I shut down, but have no idea how to find out
what it is........and I also can't seem to get to the BIOS settings on this machine.
Thanks,
Roller

[jjmcgarvey]

Hey Roller,

Did you try this to get into the Bios?

Iron Mike

Try 'delete', it works on machines with a phoenix type bios

.

My posting above

With my system that requires you to hold the “delete” key down while booting up.

Let me know what you get with this. I will be posting more shortly.
I just got back from a trip to the hospital with my sister-in-law. Nothing major now, she is setting up a sholder replacement operation for June.

Look here    http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm
and here      http://www.ozzu.com/hardware/bios-access-methods-t20188.html 

This about covers it    https://iomega-eu-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_eu_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=673
one more       http://www.brunolinux.com/01-First_Things_To_Know/Change_BIOS_Settings.html

[Dumoulin]

Hello Roller,

When you start your PC (and this apply for ANY KIND of BIO) you will seen a message about wich key you must use for go in the BIO.
Generally .... it's (as Jack tell) DEL or F2
Sometime (Award BIO surely) you will seen also F11 for go to the boot device choice.
I suspect .. you have something enabled (and wrongly) in your BIO .. about graphics.
About your error when you stop Windows (sound) please try to post the exact error message.
Note ... the sounds problems are sometime tied (don't ask me why ) with graphics problems !!

EDITED !

Oki I understand .. ! you have certainly a BIP sound when shut down .. and no messages.
Are you able to describe the sound (number of bips and short or long ....)

PLEASE....SURF SAFE....
Military regards.

[jjmcgarvey]

Hey Roller,
  Ok let me start with a little revue of what I have on my system. At this time on my Win 98 system, I have 3 separate video hardware circuits. The first is the onboard video. That has a connector on the motherboard. I believe that I removed the driver software for that when I put in the other cards. That is an onboard AGP video. The next is a AGP card in the AGP expansion slot. That is Nvidia GeForce FX5200 with a 256Mb memory. That is what you are trying to install. That is the video that is enabled and in use. The third card is a PCI card that uses SIS software. That is the one that I used before I installed the FX5200 card. The drivers for the SIS card are installed. The thing that controls which video is on the monitor is settings in the BIOS and which connection the monitor is connected to. In the Bios there are two toggles that control the video selection. The first is the one that selects between the PCI card and the AGP configuration. The next is one that selects between the AGP Onboard video or the AGP expansion slot if the slot has a card in it. I can change my display from the AGP card to the PCI card by changing the toggle and moving the monitor connector to the other card. If I hooked up 3 separate monitors, I could select which one to use by changing the settings in the Bios. I don’t have any trouble or conflict with this setup. In the System Properties – Display Adapters, both of the cards are listed

What I would like to see happen is for you to be able to use the onboard video for your display and have all of the PCI video cards out of your system.

Here is what I did when I installed my cards. I used the onboard video to supply the display. That was set up and worked. I then powered down and plugged the card into the expansion slot. The system recognized the new hardware and started the wizard to install the drivers. I then canceled out of the wizard and it was closed. The new card is sitting there recognized but uninstalled. I then find the Nvidia Driver installation file and open/start that. That package installs all the drivers and the card is now installed on your system. That package would not install the drivers if the Nvidia card was not plugged in. I now power down and move the monitor connector to the new video card and power up. The system comes up with the display going through the new card.

What I understood from your description is that you are trying to install a new PCI video card while you are looking at the display from another PCI card. I think that might be at the heart of our problem. Perhaps your system automatically selects a PCI video card when it is booting up and that is your display. I would like to use the onboard video and check how it works for a few boot up cycles and the put the new card in and not install it but just boot up and down a few times and see how that works out. If the drivers are installed for that PCI card, it may be necessary to remove them so that the system doesn’t try to use the card for the display. You mentioned in one of your posts that it asked you to overwrite existing files. I don’t like that. It seems that a lot of problems are caused by old driver files being left in the new installation. I think that the best thing is to have a completely clean setup before the actual driver installation. Take your time and try to find out as much as you can. As Dumo said, if this card is correctly installed, it will run EAW just fine. It should not be necessary to go into safe mode to install this card.

[Roller]

Hi Jack,
as I stated before, the 5200 card is installed and working.

The problem now, is the XTreme-G 78.03 driver that I had installed in my other computer
to allow me to run EAW without the 7217 error, and is installed and working in this computer,
is still giving me the 7217 error. So something is not correct, so I would like to see the
video settings in the BIOS.
I wouldn't mind having the driver cleaned out and starting again, but it is a pain.
Basically, when you install new drivers, most people say you should uninstall the old one.
But when you install new drivers, windows is supposed to automatically uninstall the old
one and make it as a backup so you can roll-back if necessary. But obviously, this is not
always done cleanly, as there are alot of same-name files with many different drivers.
I believe the reason I got the overwrite message is because I had already tried to install
the same driver, and it did not work properly. Then, I dont remember what the hell I did
after that..........

Gus, the sound I am hearing is the actual "windows" error wave sound. The same one you
hear when an error message pops up on your screen,......except it happens on shutdown
so you see no error message.
Roller

[jjmcgarvey]

Hey Roller,
Here is one little detail to think about. What you described about installing different drivers is true as far as I know. I never installed updated drivers and had any instructions about uninstalling the previous drivers, The new driver package is set up to do it so that it works OK on top of the old driver files. When we install drivers that will work in EAW and not get the 7217 error, we are usually installing older drivers files and they are not designed to handle files that didn’t exist when the back dated package was issued. That is why it is advisable to uninstall the existing driver files. You had the 6200 files installed on your system. It is very possible that many of them are still in the new driver setup and are not the files needed to avoid the 7217 error. I think that it would be best to have none of the Nvidia driver files in your system when the 5200 card is installed. The 5200 model is probably a lot older than the 6200 model.

[Roller]

Roger that Jack.
Probably end up doing a uninstall and re-install of the drivers again.
Meanwhile, see my last post at the Gen.
Thanks,
Roller

[jjmcgarvey]

That's good news Roller,

 OK now you can get into the Bios. Good! You found the toggle to switch between your onboard and your PCI card. BETTER!

NOW TAKE YOUR TIME!

EXPERIMENT and test!

Learn how to switch your display between the onboard and the PCI card. Get so that you can do it right every time. It may be possible that they mislabeled the positions of the video toggle in the bios.

Have it set up so that you are in the onboard video display. Remove your PCI card.
Test that you can cycle up and down with no problems.
Uninstall all of the Nvidia drivers.
Reboot after every change.
Put the card back in and install the drivers after canceling out of the wizard.

Power off!
Come back up and enter the bios!
Toggle the Bios to the other setting. When you are all the way up after changing the Bios setting power down again.

Switch the video cable to the PCI card and power up. Everything including EAW should run fine.

If you still have the 7217 Error, you might need to run the driver remover program.

[Dumoulin]

Hello Jack,

Read in the Gen ....

Roller is a good chief coock and made some salty soup

BTW ... normally .. his MOBO have only AGP graphic port ..and no a PCIe port....
I think it's just a confusion of words from Roller
Anyways a PCIe card go not physically in a AGP port...
I think .. with all the help .. he his now near the end of the tunnel

PLEASE....SURF SAFE....
Military regards.

[Roller]

Hello Jack,

Read in the Gen ....

Roller is a good chief coock and made some salty soup

BTW ... normally .. his MOBO have only AGP graphic port ..and no a PCIe port....
I think it's just a confusion of words from Roller
Anyways a PCIe card go not physically in a AGP port...
I think .. with all the help .. he his now near the end of the tunnel

Agreed! Terminology can also be confusing! You keep saying PCIe (express)
but the card is plain PCI not e.%^)
Roller