TNT2 PCI card faulty...????

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Hi all,
Just thought I'd ask this, before I throw my "adopted" card
in the bin...

I just installed a TNT2 M64 PCI card into an old 400Mhz machine,
to give the graphics a bit of new life (it was running an on-
board Ati Rage-Pro 8mb).
I've set the primary VGA to PCI in the BIOS, and rebooted, with
the monitor plugged into the nVidia card...
Thats it, all I get is a fuzzy screen with lots of "snow" all
over it.

Anyone have any ideas, or is it time to send it to the video
scrapyard in the sky..?

ps I'm running Red Hat linux 9, which detects the card as
a nVidia NV5M64 Riva TNT2 64/64 Pro ... if thats any help
(only found this out when reset my VGA to my onboard adapter)

Thanks in advance
Graham

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Graham Kerr wrote:

> Hi all,
> Just thought I'd ask this, before I throw my "adopted" card
> in the bin...
>
> I just installed a TNT2 M64 PCI card into an old 400Mhz machine,
> to give the graphics a bit of new life (it was running an on-
> board Ati Rage-Pro 8mb).
> I've set the primary VGA to PCI in the BIOS, and rebooted, with
> the monitor plugged into the nVidia card...
> Thats it, all I get is a fuzzy screen with lots of "snow" all
> over it.
>
> Anyone have any ideas, or is it time to send it to the video
> scrapyard in the sky..?
>
> ps I'm running Red Hat linux 9, which detects the card as
> a nVidia NV5M64 Riva TNT2 64/64 Pro ... if thats any help
> (only found this out when reset my VGA to my onboard adapter)
>
> Thanks in advance
> Graham
>

Might want to see if there's a BIOS update for that old board. I seem
to remember VERY old motherboards having incompatibilities with some TNT's.

There are several BIOS options otherwise that can cause problems. The
traditional ones are "VGA BIOS Shadow", Shadowing in general, no Assign
IRQ to VGA, AGP settings, VESA level, FastWrites, Sideband Addressing,
PCI latency (forced), etc.

Also, with some boards you actually have to pull a physical jumper to
totally disable the onboard video. You'll know it when it stops
reserving shared system memory for the video RAM.

I've always found that a card either boots and doesn't give any errors,
or you get a "NO VGA" beep code if it's dead.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Graham,

If you are running windows, you probably have a windows driver problem.

Can you put the old Rage card back in and try it?

If it works, go to Start/Control Panel/System/Device Manager and do a remove
on the old display card. It should show up as an ATI card. Highlight it and
do a remove.

Halt the machine and install the TNT. When it comes back up it should find
the new hardware and give you a chance to install a new driver. If you
don't have TNT drivers you can download a file from nvidia that will work.
If you don't have the drivers you should be able to just cancel out of the
install and have Windows default back to the old, basic VGA drivers.

tim

Graham Kerr wrote:

>
>
> Hi all,
> Just thought I'd ask this, before I throw my "adopted" card
> in the bin...
>
> I just installed a TNT2 M64 PCI card into an old 400Mhz machine,
> to give the graphics a bit of new life (it was running an on-
> board Ati Rage-Pro 8mb).
> I've set the primary VGA to PCI in the BIOS, and rebooted, with
> the monitor plugged into the nVidia card...
> Thats it, all I get is a fuzzy screen with lots of "snow" all
> over it.
>
> Anyone have any ideas, or is it time to send it to the video
> scrapyard in the sky..?
>
> ps I'm running Red Hat linux 9, which detects the card as
> a nVidia NV5M64 Riva TNT2 64/64 Pro ... if thats any help
> (only found this out when reset my VGA to my onboard adapter)
>
> Thanks in advance
> Graham

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 20:44:18 -0500, deimos wrote:

> Graham Kerr wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>> Just thought I'd ask this, before I throw my "adopted" card
>> in the bin...
>>
>> I just installed a TNT2 M64 PCI card into an old 400Mhz machine,
>> to give the graphics a bit of new life (it was running an on-
>> board Ati Rage-Pro 8mb).
>> I've set the primary VGA to PCI in the BIOS, and rebooted, with
>> the monitor plugged into the nVidia card...
>> Thats it, all I get is a fuzzy screen with lots of "snow" all
>> over it.
>>
>> Anyone have any ideas, or is it time to send it to the video
>> scrapyard in the sky..?
>>
>> ps I'm running Red Hat linux 9, which detects the card as
>> a nVidia NV5M64 Riva TNT2 64/64 Pro ... if thats any help
>> (only found this out when reset my VGA to my onboard adapter)
>>
>> Thanks in advance
>> Graham
>>
>
> Might want to see if there's a BIOS update for that old board. I seem
> to remember VERY old motherboards having incompatibilities with some TNT's.
>
> There are several BIOS options otherwise that can cause problems. The
> traditional ones are "VGA BIOS Shadow", Shadowing in general, no Assign
> IRQ to VGA, AGP settings, VESA level, FastWrites, Sideband Addressing,
> PCI latency (forced), etc.
>
> Also, with some boards you actually have to pull a physical jumper to
> totally disable the onboard video. You'll know it when it stops
> reserving shared system memory for the video RAM.
>
> I've always found that a card either boots and doesn't give any errors,
> or you get a "NO VGA" beep code if it's dead.

basically, when I change the BIOS to use the PCI adapter, the output
switches to the new card, but the output is unreadable, all thats
displayed on the monitor is some colourful noise....
I can't even see the bios boot screen, but the machine doesnt
do any bios error beeps....
To revert to my on-board card, I have to use the CMOS jumper on
the motherboard, to reset all BIOS settings back to factory defaults.

I could let the machine boot into windows/linux, but I cant make sense
of the display, so I cant see what Im doing....

So in essence, the card is driving the display, but all that is
getting displayed is a lot of junk.....

Anyone.....?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (More info?)

Graham Kerr wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 20:44:18 -0500, deimos wrote:
>
>
>>Graham Kerr wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi all,
>>>Just thought I'd ask this, before I throw my "adopted" card
>>>in the bin...
>>>
>>>I just installed a TNT2 M64 PCI card into an old 400Mhz machine,
>>>to give the graphics a bit of new life (it was running an on-
>>>board Ati Rage-Pro 8mb).
>>>I've set the primary VGA to PCI in the BIOS, and rebooted, with
>>>the monitor plugged into the nVidia card...
>>>Thats it, all I get is a fuzzy screen with lots of "snow" all
>>>over it.
>>>
>>>Anyone have any ideas, or is it time to send it to the video
>>>scrapyard in the sky..?
>>>
>>>ps I'm running Red Hat linux 9, which detects the card as
>>>a nVidia NV5M64 Riva TNT2 64/64 Pro ... if thats any help
>>>(only found this out when reset my VGA to my onboard adapter)
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance
>>>Graham
>>>
>>
>>Might want to see if there's a BIOS update for that old board. I seem
>>to remember VERY old motherboards having incompatibilities with some TNT's.
>>
>>There are several BIOS options otherwise that can cause problems. The
>>traditional ones are "VGA BIOS Shadow", Shadowing in general, no Assign
>>IRQ to VGA, AGP settings, VESA level, FastWrites, Sideband Addressing,
>>PCI latency (forced), etc.
>>
>>Also, with some boards you actually have to pull a physical jumper to
>>totally disable the onboard video. You'll know it when it stops
>>reserving shared system memory for the video RAM.
>>
>>I've always found that a card either boots and doesn't give any errors,
>>or you get a "NO VGA" beep code if it's dead.
>
>
> basically, when I change the BIOS to use the PCI adapter, the output
> switches to the new card, but the output is unreadable, all thats
> displayed on the monitor is some colourful noise....
> I can't even see the bios boot screen, but the machine doesnt
> do any bios error beeps....
> To revert to my on-board card, I have to use the CMOS jumper on
> the motherboard, to reset all BIOS settings back to factory defaults.
>
> I could let the machine boot into windows/linux, but I cant make sense
> of the display, so I cant see what Im doing....
>
> So in essence, the card is driving the display, but all that is
> getting displayed is a lot of junk.....
>
> Anyone.....?
>

Well there is a basic video mode and logic chip built into all graphics
cards. They provide minimal functionality, a character mode, but if you
don't even see the BIOS for the card boot (a small diagnostic message
with the bios revision), it's dead.

See if you can borrow a friend's card or try the TNT2 in his rig, but
otherwise I'd junk it.