Monitor/Video Card problems.

[netdragonx]

Greetings wise and almighty g33k gods!

I have a problem for you to help me with (if you can). I have been setting up a LAN in my home (no, not a network problem) and ran across a video card problem after I installed a NIC on a 300Mhz AMD k6 system.

Basically, nothing comes up on the monitor when I boot the system. I know the monitor is receiving power, and I checked the cables and connections inside and outside the computer and it seems to be in order. I'll describe what happened:

1. Shut down computer.
2. Removed shell of computer and installed EtherFast network card.
3. Re-attached shell, booted computer, installed NIC drivers.
4. Restarted.
5. Blank.

Hmm... any ideas?

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- Mr. Dragon

[Jiggy]

i need some info,
1. graphics, onboard/PCI or AGP?
2. if onboard enter BIOS check that it is enabled, if PCI or AGP make sure cards are seated well.

do you have a spare graphics card you can try?
hope this helps.

forgive me, im young. Jiggy

[Rick]

I would first Reseat the Video card.
It’s not all that uncommon for a card to pop free of a slot while inserting a new card.

Second check the settings for the new NIC.
Is it PnP, software select, or Jumpered?

[Randy_tx]

Your vid card and NIC are very likely taking up the same IRQ...if you can change the IRQ on either you will be able to verify it.

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XP didn't save Me !

[netdragonx]

Hi,

Hmm... well, I must have reseated it 4 times already to no avail. So I don't think that is the problem. And, I would attempt to switch IRQ ports... if I could actually see what was going on! The NIC card is PnP and the drivers have been installed. Since you suggest that it may be an IRQ confliction problem, I'm going to try removing the NIC temporarily and then booting the system to see if I get results. Thanks for the help guys. I'll be back if it doesn't work.

- Matt

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- Mr. Dragon

[netdragonx]

Alright, it seems it is an IRQ problem. I removed the NIC and rebooted and it seemed to work properly. How do I go about setting different IRQ settings? I looked around in Windows System Device Manager, but since I didn't have the NIC inside my comp it didn't show up in the network adapter section so I can't mess with the settings there. After that I restarted and checked out the CMOS settings for PnP/PCI Configuration and here they are:

PnP OS Installed : Yes
Resources Controlled By : Auto
Reset Configuration Data : Disabled
----
PCI IDE IRQ Map to : PCI-Auto
Primary IDE INT# : A
Secondary IDE INT# : B


Anything I could change with those settings (or their transcending settings) that would fix the problem?

Added: Also, I removed the vid card and saw that it's an S3 Virge/GX On Board card.

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- Mr. Dragon

[This message has been edited by netdragonx (edited 04-20-2002).]

[Rick]

I would start by setting PnP Operating System to NO
Reset Configuration to YES
Save changes and reboot.
The chipset will assign all devices by it’s defaults.

Windows will take awhile to boot this time.
It has to read and follow the Bios settings.

After you have it running again shut down
Install your Nic and boot up.

The Bios should detect and assign the NIC .

Then continue to Boot to windows


OR

you could just re-install the NIC in another slot. And Hope windows assigns it to another IRQ.
Unfortunately with the PnP O/S set to Yes windows will probably screw it up again.

[netdragonx]

Alright - thanks. Just a question about the tip you gave me, if and when would I change the CMOS settings? Because should it reset the configuration each time?

Hmm...

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- Mr. Dragon

[Rick]

I would set the PnP to NO in the Bios
When you power the system. And leave it there permanently..
You only need to change the Reset Config to Yes when ever you move cards around it the slots.
It should reset itself to No after it boots the first time after a change is made

[netdragonx]

Hmm....

Well, I did what you said but I'm still having problems. Now it's gotten past the point of blank-monitor, but when it gets to the initial GUI area and installs drivers for the new hardware it's detected, it errors after the driver installation of the NIC card and will not continue to load Windows after that. gah! Umm... ideas?

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- Mr. Dragon

[Rick]

Did you remove all the old drivers for the NIC.
If need be remove all the old nic drivers using SafeMode

Also does it display an error message or does it simple freeze up the system

[netdragonx]

Hi.

Ok, I don't think I've ever actually installed any NIC drivers yet. So, multiple drivers isn't the problem. Yeah, it does give me an error. Right now when I attempt to load windows, the file MSGSRV32 screws up and returns the 'This program has performed an illegal operation, it will be shut down.'.

Error Details:
MSGSRV32 caused an invalid page vault in module KERNEL32.dll at 0177:bff7c838.

Then after I hit close it just sits there doing nothing. I press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and no files are open. So I restart after waiting a while. When I use Windows Safe Mode it loads and reaches the inital alert (Windows is running in safe mode. Blah blah blah...), but after I hit 'Ok' I get 3 errors:

Explorer - This program has performed an illegal operation... EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module OLE32.dll.
Explorer - This program has p[erformed an illegal operation.... EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in module OLE32.dll.


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- Mr. Dragon

[netdragonx]

Hi,

As far as I know, no other drivers have been installed. So, it isn't a multiple driver problem.

Here's the errors that occur when I run windows normally with and without the NIC card and a safe mode startup. Each time the system sits there doing nothing after closing the error.

Normal startup (with NIC):
1. Win98 detects new hardware and continues to install drivers.
2. When it detects the NIC card and asks for the location of the drivers... I give it the location and hit 'Ok'. Then I get the following error:

MSGSRV32 has performed an illegal operation...
MSGSRV32 caused a page fault in module OLE32.DLL.

- Even when I hit 'skip file' it gives me the error.

Normal startup (Without NIC):
1. Win98 detects the new hardware (not the NIC, but the sound card), and installs appropriate drivers.
2. After installation, three errors pop-up in succession. Each relating to Windows Explorer. Here they are:

EXPLORER - This program has performed an illegal operation.
EXPLORER caused a page fault in module OLE32.DLL.

EXPLORER - This program has performed an illegal operation.
EXPLORER caused a page fault in module OLE32.DLL.

EXPLORER - This program has performed an illegal operation.
EXPLORER caused a page fault in module EXPLORER.EXE.

Safe-mode startup (with and without NIC):
1. Reaches the alert ("Windows is running in safe-mode.").
2. After hitting 'ok' the same error messages from 'Normal startup (without NIC)' occur.

Hope somebody knows what to do... this is my dad's computer and he's getting a little impatient. Thanks

PS Could one of the MODs erase the above message? Not sure how it was posted, it was the one that I wrote an hour ago when my connection was bad. gah! Computers.

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- Mr. Dragon

[This message has been edited by netdragonx (edited 04-22-2002).]