Prev: ServeRAID: tape on second bus not detected
Next: serial to usb adaptor?
From: Sarah on 8 Apr 2008 17:45
Interesting problem: a colleague asked me to have a look at his PC.
Upgraded his graphics card. Video corrupted, so replaces old card. Video
now corrupted with old card!

Have I zapped the MB, he asks me? Oh no, I said, it'll be a driver prob.
I'll sort it out...


So I boot into XP, and get grossly corrupted video. Difficult to
describe, but looks like a regular pattern overlying the desktop.

Boot with Ubuntu live cd - corrupted video! OK. Ctl-Alt-F1. Oh, that's
corrupted too. Not quite the same, parts of the screen legible but whole
lines and some individual characters are garbage.

Boot with debian installer - same again. Hmm. Oh well, at least now I
can legitimately post to comp.os.linux.hardware :-)

Having decided that there was some problem with the AGP slot I plugged
in an old FX5900 card. That works. I am now a bit confused. I have three
graphics cards. One Radeon and one GeForce show similar corruption under
both XP and Linux. Another card works fine. One 8x card works, another
doesn't, so that's not the answer.

Any thoughts?

Sarah


P.S. The motherboard is an AOpen vK8T800a-LF, the original card a Radeon
9600XT, and the new card an nVidia Inno3d 6200.
From: Janaka on 8 Apr 2008 20:04
On Apr 9, 7:45 am, Sarah <uaqjt...(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Interesting problem: a colleague asked me to have a look at his PC.
> Upgraded his graphics card. Video corrupted, so replaces old card. Video
> now corrupted with old card!
>
> Have I zapped the MB, he asks me? Oh no, I said, it'll be a driver prob.
> I'll sort it out...
>
> So I boot into XP, and get grossly corrupted video. Difficult to
> describe, but looks like a regular pattern overlying the desktop.
>
> Boot with Ubuntu live cd - corrupted video! OK. Ctl-Alt-F1. Oh, that's
> corrupted too. Not quite the same, parts of the screen legible but whole
> lines and some individual characters are garbage.
>
> Boot with debian installer - same again. Hmm. Oh well, at least now I
> can legitimately post to comp.os.linux.hardware :-)
>
> Having decided that there was some problem with the AGP slot I plugged
> in an old FX5900 card. That works. I am now a bit confused. I have three
> graphics cards. One Radeon and one GeForce show similar corruption under
> both XP and Linux. Another card works fine. One 8x card works, another
> doesn't, so that's not the answer.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Sarah
>
> P.S. The motherboard is an AOpen vK8T800a-LF, the original card a Radeon
> 9600XT, and the new card an nVidia Inno3d 6200.

Some food for thought:
1. Trace the problem backwards from the monitor. Is the monitor
working ok with a different computer in all modes ? How about the VGA
cable ? Try wiggling the cable around (while its on ) and see
whether that changes things. Does the VGA cable pins look ok ? are
they bent or depressed ?
2. Does the two cards that doesn't work on that computer work with
another computer hooked up to the same monitor at the same physical
location ?
3. Given that Motherboard bios does some graphics card
initializations, may be the bios is stuffed or flaky!
4. Given different graphics cards require varying amounts of power
from the AGP bus, it could be an issue with the motherboard power
regulators. If the problem is this, it will be extreamly hard to
track (I had a similar problem with USB bus which ended up being the
regulator on the motherboard that was fried)
5. Does any of the capacitors look bloated or open?
6. Is the RAM ok ?
From: Mark Hobley on 9 Apr 2008 01:08
Sarah <uaqjtclv(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Interesting problem: a colleague asked me to have a look at his PC.
> Upgraded his graphics card. Video corrupted, so replaces old card. Video
> now corrupted with old card!

I recently had a callout to a computer that did this. The video card had
stopped working, and replacement cards were doing the same thing.

I found an old video card that was made by the same manufacturer as the
motherboard, and miraculously, the problem disappeared.

You could try to reset the motherboard by removing the internal battery,
shorting the discharge pin, and refitting the internal battery again.

You may also be able to change the AGP timing within the system bios.

If not, maybe a PCI video card could be used, if you have PCI slots and
a spare card.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.
From: Sarah on 9 Apr 2008 02:13
Janaka wrote:
>> Interesting problem: a colleague asked me to have a look at his PC.
>> Upgraded his graphics card. Video corrupted, so replaces old card. Video
>> now corrupted with old card!
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Sarah
>>
>> P.S. The motherboard is an AOpen vK8T800a-LF, the original card a Radeon
>> 9600XT, and the new card an nVidia Inno3d 6200.
>
> Some food for thought:
> 1. Trace the problem backwards from the monitor. Is the monitor
> working ok with a different computer in all modes ? How about the VGA
> cable ? Try wiggling the cable around (while its on ) and see
> whether that changes things. Does the VGA cable pins look ok ? are
> they bent or depressed ?

I used a different monitor and cable.

> 2. Does the two cards that doesn't work on that computer work with
> another computer hooked up to the same monitor at the same physical
> location ?

Obvious suggestion that I'd missed. Thanks!

I'll try the two non-working cards in a different PC. The wonderful
thing with a modern Linux distro is that I don't have to go tracking
down and installing drivers - it will either work or not work.

> 3. Given that Motherboard bios does some graphics card
> initializations, may be the bios is stuffed or flaky!

I hadn't thought of that. I'll reset the BIOS as my next step.

> 4. Given different graphics cards require varying amounts of power
> from the AGP bus, it could be an issue with the motherboard power
> regulators. If the problem is this, it will be extreamly hard to
> track (I had a similar problem with USB bus which ended up being the
> regulator on the motherboard that was fried)
> 5. Does any of the capacitors look bloated or open?
> 6. Is the RAM ok ?

All good ideas, but don't really explain why sticking a new card in
should knacker the old one. Still, could just be conincidence. I'll try
the other ideas first and then run memtest86 and have another look at
the capacitors.

Thanks for your help - I'll report back!

Sarah
From: Sarah on 9 Apr 2008 02:20
Mark Hobley wrote:
> Sarah <uaqjtclv(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Interesting problem: a colleague asked me to have a look at his PC.
>> Upgraded his graphics card. Video corrupted, so replaces old card. Video
>> now corrupted with old card!
>
> I recently had a callout to a computer that did this. The video card had
> stopped working, and replacement cards were doing the same thing.
>
> I found an old video card that was made by the same manufacturer as the
> motherboard, and miraculously, the problem disappeared.

Interesting...

> You could try to reset the motherboard by removing the internal battery,
> shorting the discharge pin, and refitting the internal battery again.
>
> You may also be able to change the AGP timing within the system bios.

I'll try resetting the BIOS and see what happens.

> If not, maybe a PCI video card could be used, if you have PCI slots and
> a spare card.

There are PCI slots and I got a couple of spare Matrox G200 cards I use
under linux. The only trouble is he wanted to *up*grade the graphics -
presumably so his kids could play newer games. I don't think a ten year
old PCI card will really do the job!

Thanks,

Sarah
 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2
Prev: ServeRAID: tape on second bus not detected
Next: serial to usb adaptor?