video card trouble

ngc457 · March 11th, 2002, 08:25 AM

I have a Hercules geforce 2 MX card on a Shuttle AK31A rev3.1 motherboard. My problem is 50% to 60% of the time when I boot up the computer windows boots up but them on the system tray it has a message saying detecting new AGP device and then freezes. I hit the reset button and sometimes the same problem shows up or it boots perfect. If it boots perfect the computer and video work 100% with no problems and will remain that way until shutdown or reboot. Also 20% of the time the the display becomes fragmented with crazy colors just before or just after POST. The BIOS settings are set to default agp 4x and apeture 64m I set it down to 2x amd 32m but did no good. shadow video bios is set to enable. The drivers are the ones that Windows XP automaticaly use. Any suggestions on how to fix this.

Cody · March 11th, 2002, 08:27 AM

Sounds like it's overheating, but you better wait for an expert opinion, because even if I'm right I don't know why it would be "undetecting" it.

Cody

KenKun · March 11th, 2002, 09:08 AM

Hi

mmm ... thats a thinker ...
How much RAM you have ?
It could be something worng with the drivers (corrupted??) or the card itself going down

...

Try other drivers ... the 22.50 beta .. they worked like charm in my winXP ...

Regards

Tazman · March 11th, 2002, 09:08 AM

Did you recently move the pc? Or, as Cody stated, is the temps okay on the board and processor? Heat expansion will cause the components to become unseated after time as the computer is turned on and off. This never has been a problem for me but I could see it happening on a box that is running hot or with poor air flow.

I would try re-seating the video card (check to make sure the other add in cards are also seated properly) and then start the computer back up. Once XP is up and running, check out your device manager to make sure everything is fine in it. If there aren't any problems (hopefully there aren't

), try rebooting and shutting down a few times to see if it was that easy.

You also may want to install the drivers from Hercules from here . I haven't had any problems with that video card and XP drivers in any system I have happened to use that card but ya never know.

Mike

ngc457 · March 11th, 2002, 09:21 AM

The card is seated well. I just checked it. However I will check again. The system temps are great. It is an Athlon XP 1600 and on load it is running at 39c. The amount of system ram is 512 meg of Kingston ram.

Tazman · March 11th, 2002, 12:37 PM

I just got a couple of questions so I can understand where to go from here.

First, how old is the system / video card? Was the card ever in another machine? If so, did you ever have these problems before?

From the sounds of it, something is up with the video card. I say that because of the periodic garbled display at POST. I would feel safe to assume that it isn't a Windows problem but a BIOS / hardware issue - I think you already came to that conclusion as you already have tried adjusting the settings in the BIOS.

From here, the easy way to go would try the card in a different computer and see if it does the same thing. If you could rule out that it's the video card it would save you a lot of troubleshooting the motherboard and BIOS.

I haven't ever used that motherboard but I did have a similar problem on two systems I built a month or so ago using the Soyo Dragon motherboard. After I put it together and booted, I went in the BIOS and set it to Optimal Performance and started installing Windows. The systems kept hanging / locking up. After 6 attempts to install the o/s's, I relized that it was acting as if it was overclocked. When I checked all of the settings in the BIOS, the memory, FSB, etc. was all bumped up. I set them back to defaults. I dunno if that will help but you might want to look at the memory speed settings. I'll surf a little for the manual on that board and see if there is anything in it that I can guide you to.

Mike

ngc457 · March 11th, 2002, 08:01 PM

I built the computer for a friend a few months ago from all brand new parts including the graphics card. When I built the computer it never had those problems but developed shortly after my friend took it home.
I checked to see if the card was loose by pushing down on it, but next time I will take out card and put it back in. If that doesn't work I will swap my card for his and put it in my computer to test it. I email hercules about the problem but no response yet. If the card is bad I hope they are good with warrenties.

ngc457 · March 11th, 2002, 08:02 PM

I wanted to add something. I posted the same thing at sysopt and no one reply but here you have.
Thanks

kdanner · March 12th, 2002, 01:11 PM

It sounds like your video BIOS is corrupted or the chipset is bad.
If you can't successfully flash the video card BIOS, try another video card. If the replacement card works fine, you need to replace the video card. I hope it is under warranty. I would also check the compatibility list with regard to video cards on the motherboard manufacturer's website. Some chipsets are not compatible with some video cards. Hope this helps.

Tazman · March 14th, 2002, 07:13 AM

I was just wondering if you had a chance to swap the cards yet and if so what the results were.

Also, does your buddy have the knowledge of overclocking the processor or video card? I sure hope it wasn't something along those lines

.

BTW, as you can see, TechIMO is where it's at

. Glad you made the change!

Mike