MX400 vs. 694X - No display

[KachiWachi]

Any reason why an eVGA e-GF2 MX400 PCI (NV11-P1 64MB) on a VIA 694X won't boot the machine, but will boot when another video card is installed?

Once into Windows (2000 in this case), the video card operates fine as either a primary or a secondary adapter..

ASUS P3V 4X, Rev. 1.02 board, 1005 BIOS.

Thanks!

[Ritchie]

There can be several reasons for video incompatibility. A PCI card needs to be comptabile with the PCI revision of the PCI slots on the mainboard. I was also discussing this with a friend some weeks back, and he seems to think there are at least 2 to 3 other areas of compatiblity between a PCI VGA card and a PCI mainboard. I cannot unfortunately recall what these issues are.

If the card recognises under Windows and not the BIOS, it sounds like Windows is bypassing the BIOS and recognising the video card in question directly. Unfortunately booting off this card as a primary and only adaptor in the system requires that the BIOS will operate with the video card installed, so that it can initialise it, then initialise other system functions and then transfer control from the BIOS to the hard disk and O/S. If a video card is not present, the BIOS will not perform POST (Power On Self Test) operations and therefore not transfer control of the system to the O/S.

[KachiWachi]

I just ran a PCI 4.9á (DOS) test on the system yesterday.

Instead of showing:

Command 0007h (I/O Access, Memory Access, BusMaster)

the card shows:

Command 0000h (Bus Access Disabled!)

The Boot Summary Screen does not show the card present either (no IRQ assigned). System BIOS date is 06/13/2000 (v.1005).

I had assumed the card worked in the system at one point, since I got the thing from neighbor...and it was the only video card installed. I guess I'll have to ask them once they get back from their Christmas vacation.

[KachiWachi]

I was speaking with my neighbor about this the other day (the original owner of the PC). He said that in order for the PC to boot, he had to unplug the monitor, then plug it back in as the boot progressed.

Low and behold...that works!

Why would having a monitor attached during boot cause the video card to "disable" itself?

[ajzchips]

That card might requiere the presence of a certain impedance at boot in order to initialize itself... who knows... maybe the one provided by your monitor is too low.

[KachiWachi]

Interesting thought...how *might* one find this out (besides write eVGA)?

What happens is that the monitor turns on, then goes into powersaving mode right away...this is what *seems* to cause the no-boot situation.

The monitor works fine with any other card I have had installed, so I can't see it being the monitor's fault. It is also a different monitor than what the neighbor used.

[Denniss]

Maybe a problem with the graphics Bios ?
Does eVGA support Bios updates for this card ?