New Video Card Issues

[cyrix]

I'm having a problem with an old E-Machines box I was trying to repair (someone junked it because the onboard video went bad.)

I threw in an old PCI video card I had laying around.
Booted up, it took me through the usual song and dance, until I ended up on the desktop.
I then turned it off without installing the drivers yet.
When I tried to boot back up to install the drivers I got a video feed, but up until the end of the windows boot skin. After that it was black.

I tried booting up several times but still got nothing but black after the windows boot skin.

I then tried removing the card and plugging the monitor back up to the onboard, even though I know it doesn't work thinking that the bios would set that up as the primary video again. Booted up and let it sit for a few minutes.

I turned the PC off, plugged the card back into the PCI slot, hooked up the monitor to that, turned on the PC, and now I get absolutely nothing at all.

Is there anything I can do to fix this? I'm just totally stumped right now.

The PC is an Emachines t1840, the video card is a Nvidia TNT 16mb.

 

[Elbatrop1]

Does it display all of the startup info? Or is there a black screen right from the get go?

If there is a black screen right from the beginning and the onboard is toast, then it might be rather difficult to fix.

I think the only thing you can do at this point is try reseating the vid card in different PCI slots.

If somehow the BIOS has managed to default itself to onboard video, and you cant use the onboard video to get into the BIOS, then it might be difficult to change the option to disable onboard video.

You might also try resetting the BIOS by leaving the battery out for a few minutes. Perhaps the mobo will sense that you are trying to put a different video card in. Thats a long shot, but worth a try, considering what other options are available.

 

[cyrix]

I tried moving it around various PCI slots, but nothing happened. And as of now I don't get any video feed at all, nothing from the very second I boot up. I mean the little bouncing box on my monitor mocking me saying there's no feed is there....but other than that nothing.

I'm trying to find some pictures of the bios for my machine so I can try to fly blind and change it from onboard to pci.

EDIT::::::::::

I removed the battery and then placed it back in. Put the card back into the slot, then hooked the monitor up.

It boots up fine, and I get video up till the boot screen again, then after that it goes black.

 

[Elbatrop1]

Try removing the battery, etc again, but try booting into safe mode (by hitting f8 repeatedly during bootup).

That will help to determine if you are having problems with an driver, or if it is a hardware problem.

 

[cyrix]

Try removing the battery, etc again, but try booting into safe mode (by hitting f8 repeatedly during bootup).

That will help to determine if you are having problems with an driver, or if it is a hardware problem.

I got it working now. I just need to get the right drivers for it. Thank you. Although sometimes the mouse freezes up...but that's another issue altogether.

 

[Elbatrop1]

Can you tell us what the solution was? Was it what I said? Its always nice to know if my advice helped

 

[cyrix]

I removed the battery. Place it back in. Then plugged the card into the pci slot. Hooked up the monitor, booted up and it went to the desktop again.

I had to fiddle around with some settings to get the performance up a little, but it's good now.

My only issue is I can't find an appropriate driver for the video card. See, I can't find anything on nvidias website or through searching the web. It's a Nvidia Riva TNT 16mb card. And right now it's assigned a windows driver. It's working okay, but I get a pop up everytime I start up the PC trying to get me to install a driver for it. It's a minor annoyance, but I can live with it.

 

[waynejkruse10]

i have one of those, but a 32mb model

Nvidia's Site says you can use the 81.85 drivers with them, but i have found problems with using newer drivers with TNT's.

I use the 66.93 drivers, they work great!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_66.93.html