Black Screen after installing AGP card

[Major_Madness]

Running Windows 2000. I had an AGP card die on me, so I went out and bought a Radeon 7000 AGP card (32MB) and installed it. New hardware detect went fine and searched the CD and installed, but now I'm getting a blank screen. Monitor light is green. I go into safe mode and remove the display card driver, then reboot, and hit cancel when it finds new hardware. Tried to install from setup from the CD, it loads software, runs fine except when I change the display settings it either goes black or goes rainbow on me. When I leave the settings as is, the video quality is horrible. Then when I reboot, I get black screen. The users manual says to install the VIA AGP update with the old card still in (I would if I could), so I tried installing the update in safe mode and get an error. I even tried installing the update in low-quality display mode described earlier, but get the same error (I'm not home right now and I didn't write down the error message). I go into BIOS settings and have three options for AGP--AGP arpeture settings set at 64m; AGP 4x enabled; AGP turbo mode (?) disabled. I'm taking my AGP card back to the store and exchanging it for a PCI video card and hopefully I won't have the same problem. Anyone have any feelings toward PCI video cards as opposed to AGP? Thanks!

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If you build it, they will come.

[Major_Madness]

Third AGP bios setting is actually AGP Fast-Writes, not turbo mode...

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If you build it, they will come.

[mjc]

Stick with the AGP, overall an AGP card will be faster than a PCI card, but see if you can beg or borrow a card like the one you are replacing...that way you may be able to install the update.

Also the problem you are having may be related to the refresh rate/resolution not being compatible...try using the lowest possible of both and slowly work your way up, that means if you have to start with 640x480 at adapter default so be it at least you will be able to see what you are doing....

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Major_Madness]

Okay I'm completely stumped and totally frustrated. I've gone into safe mode a dozen times and removed the drivers and other yellow devices and rebooted and am still having the same problem. I installed the VIA 4-in-1 drivers and now I have the root error blue screen and can't boot up at all. I went into safe mode and tried to remove the 4-in-1, but its not listed in add/remove programs. Thankfully, I have another hard drive in my computer with Win2K installed. The AGP update I mentioned in my first post won't install--I get an error saying to check the progress log in the Windows folder for more details. I've tried everything I can think of and I've tried things I've found throughout this forum, all to no avail. Nothing works. I guess I'm gonna have to go with a PCI video card if that's the only kind that will work with my system.

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You don't know what you've got 'til its gone

[saphalline]

It's probably your system combo. I don't mean to sound fatalistic, but a VIA mobo + Win2k + ATI graphics card = lots of headaches! Win2k already has a bunch of probs with ATI cards, unless you DL the latest drivers from ATI (that could be the problem). Add the probs associated with VIA 4-in-1 drivers (half the time they don't work well) and you've got yourself one messed up situation.

A PCI card may be a solution, but some mobos require that you have an AGP card first before you can disable the AGP slot and use a PCI card, so if that's the case you might as well stick with an AGP card. Also, although the Radeon 7000 has the word "Radeon", it's actually based off the old ATI Rage design/GPU and may not have good Win2k compatable drivers in the first place.

The bottom line is that if your system worked with an AGP card before, it can work with AGP cards. Save yourself the PCI headaches and just get a different AGP card. Have you looked into getting the cheap GeForce2 MX200? Those things are cheaper than your average Duron proc and about on par with the Radeon 7000.

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Windows 95: A 32-bit extension of a 16-bit overlay for an 8-bit OS that was originally designed for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit company that can't produce 1 bit of good software!

[Rick]

To Uninstall the Via 4in1 drives.
Run the same Via4in1 program you used to install them.
During the setup for the install select Uninstall all drives.
This will remove the old via drives.

You should be able to reboot and allow win2k to use its default via drives.

With the new video card installed.
you should be able to install the drivers for it.

Then install the latest chipset drivers .

[Major_Madness]

Thanks Saphalline and Rick for your replies. I tried the AGP chipset driver from viaarena.com--different from the 4-in-1--and got an error saying it couldn't be installed and to check the progress log for details. I tried that in safe mode and in regular mode when it ran long enough for me to do so. I'll go back and try to uninstall the 4-in-1 by running the setup program again. What I'll try next is a non-ATI AGP card and see how far I get with that. I plugged in a PCI card to verify it was a video card problem, and that worked but I didn't keep it in any longer than I needed to. Thanks for your help.

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You don't know what you've got 'til its gone

[Major_Madness]

I went out and bought the GEFORCE 2 MX400 AGP video card, installed it, ran the wizard, installed the drivers, and BAM! everything works fine. A special thanks goes out to Saphalline for pointing out to me that RADEON wasn't my only AGP option--I was blinded by frustration :P Hmmmm what can I do with the refund for the RADEON? Drinks are on me!

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You don't know what you've got 'til its gone