Issues with New Video Card

[Bovinicus]

The system I am referring to is the Cowbox in my signature.

I recently purchased a Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB (400/443MHz) to replace my Radeon 8500 that kicked the bucket. I had one Hell of a time installing the card. I had to do all kinds of stuff like totally clean off the old drivers (Even though they were Catalyst drivers), turn on fast writes, etc. to get the card working. It worked only briefly before everything went downhill.

Upon the initial loading of Windows 2000, after it completes, but before the login screen is reached, the monitor would stop receiving a signal from the video card. The light on the monitor would blink green and amber, as though the system were in standby.

I ended up formatting my system and application partitions. I felt the OS could use a fresh install anyway. All seemed to go well. I installed all Windows updates and driver updates, except one. I later remembered that I never installed the latest chipset drivers. As soon as I installed the chipset drivers, the problem resumed. For some reason the latest Hyperion drivers from VIA seem to have a bad relationship with this video card. Even somewhat older VIA drivers still resulted in the same problem (I found some older versions via Google). I also tried various versions of the Catalyst drivers, including the Omega drivers. I could still get into safe mode.

I'm left to wonder what this is all about. I don't overclock, and I trashed a fresh installation of Windows 2000 incredibly fast. I want to try a few things before I format again, but it looks like formatting is my plan of attack tonight when I get home from work.

Any other suggestions, thoughts, etc. are all welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[Bovinicus]

Bump.

I know it's long, but detailed explanations are best.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I wish I had some ideas for you... is there any way you can put the card in another system and see how it runs in there? Maybe the radeon is messed up.

 

[Bovinicus]

There is, and I may very well try that. I came across a bit of information via Sapphire's support forums and Google. I'm going to try a few things. I'll report back. Thanks for your insight.

 

[Bovinicus]

Alright. I've formatted again. It has come to my attention that SmartGART has AGP disabled. I can still play games and such, but I find this odd. Also, there are two primary display adapters listed. PnP automatically detects two cards at bootup.

Any other ideas?

 

[Bovinicus]

I've tried more things: BIOS stuff (AGP set at 2x, fast writes, AGP WS writes/reads, etc.)

I also tried installing older verisons of the Catalyst drivers (4.2 and 3.8) in conjunction with the VIA chipset drivers. They call caused system hanging instead of loss of video signal in the same spot during bootup. Also, it appears AGP texturing is not enabled in Direct X's program either.

I just ghosted an image of my OS partition before trying this stuff and restore if necessary. Keep any suggesitons coming this way!

 

[fuzzynavel]

2 graphics cards at bootup??? Do you happen to have a mobo with onboard video?

Also...if the problems started when you installed the hyperion drivers then just don't install them....if the system runs fine without them then why bother!

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: fuzzynavel
2 graphics cards at bootup??? Do you happen to have a mobo with onboard video?

Also...if the problems started when you installed the hyperion drivers then just don't install them....if the system runs fine without them then why bother!

No, I don't have onboard video. The second video card shows up as a "Seconday Radeon 9600 Series" card.

Well, I know it could be running better. It appears as though AGP texturing is turned off, which I know has the potential the make a significant difference.

I'm going to see, later tonight, if I can at least get away with installing newer chipset drivers without the AGP drivers. I will at least reap the benefits of improved IDE performance in that scenario.

 

[Bovinicus]

More odd developments in this ongoing situation. I ended up installing various parts of the VIA service pack separately to see the results. Installing only the AGP drivers via the setup program resulted in the same problem. Installing the INF and IDE drivers via the setup program resulted in the same problem.

Then, I decided to do some manual driver installs. I manually installed one variant of the AGP controller drivers and it caused the same issue. I manually installed another variant without issue. I also installed the PCI to CPU bridge and PCI to ISA bridge drivers without issue. Both variants were contained in the same 4.43 service pack (VIA recommends this one for KT266A chipsets, but yes, I also tried both newer and older versions already).

SmartGART is still reporting AGP as off, although it does report fast writes as being on... I'm so confused.

Time to disable SmartGART and see what happens.

 

[rasczak]

have you made sure taht you have in your bios your agp card set as default vga display?, also i think you need to install the chipset drivers first before you install anything else right?

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: jpbelauskas
have you made sure taht you have in your bios your agp card set as default vga display?, also i think you need to install the chipset drivers first before you install anything else right?

Yes, VGA is the init display, not PCI.

I have formatted 3 times thus far. One of those three times I installed the chipset drivers before the video card drivers.

I appreciate the ideas. Keep them coming.

Oh, furthermore, Advanced SmartGART claims AGP reading and writing are turned off. Also, dxdiag claims there is no AGP texture acceleration. Even if I try to change these things in SmartGART, they revert back to their previous settings. Also, FW stays on even if disabled in the BIOS.

 

[Bovinicus]

Recap of problem:

Currently, system is operational. However, AGP reading and writing appear to be turned off according to SmartGART. Despite my best efforts, I cannot enable them. Dxdiag also says that AGP texture acceleration is turned off.

Recap of attempted solutions to original and current problem:

BIOS settings - AGP speed, aperture size, fast writes, 1WS read, 1 WS write, palette snooping, init display, irq settings, etc., etc. (Unfortuatenly, I cannot adjust AGP voltage)

Formatted OS and application partitions. Fresh OS install. Done 3 times.

Installed various versions of both catalyst (Latest, 4.2, 3.8, Omega's, ATi's, CD with video card) and chipset drivers (Latest, 4.43, 4.03, CD with motherboard). Installed them in various orders relative to other drivers.

Disabled SmartGART.

Manually installed chipset drivers.

All BIOS and drivers are up to date.

I believe that's all thus far, but I may have done other things. I've put a lot of time into this already. Feel free to refer to previous posts for more detailed explanations.