Can't boot eMachine e733i with ATI Radeon 7000 PCI card

[dsmith@dca.net]

We bought an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI video card to install in my son's eMachine 733i system. According to eMachine's web site, the onboard Intel graphics controller will be automatically disabled if a video card is installed in one of the two PCI slots.

The system appears to recognize the card as present, since the initial "splash" screen is displayed and some of the boot information appears on the screen, however, before the Windows (ME) boot begins the system "hangs", unresponsive to anything typed on the keyboard.

I am new to this level of detail on a PC, so don't know what to look at or what to try. A friend suggested "clearing the CMOS". What do you think?

[ajzchips]

Have you uninstalled the onboard VGA drivers before inserting the ATI?

[dsmith@dca.net]

>> Have you uninstalled the onboard VGA drivers before inserting the ATI?

No, I've done nothing other than insert the PCI card and attempt to boot. Oh, I did enter BIOS setup mode (by typing <ESC> at the appropriate point during startup) with the card *not installed* and look for any settings related to video cards. There was one option, to "look for primary video card" or something like that, and the two choices are PCI and AGP. It was already set to PCI (which is all the motherbard has) so I left it that way.

Do you mean something I would do in the BIOS, or something I would do in Windows ME? Whichever, are you suggesting I do this and, if so, how?

[ajzchips]

Perhaps improper dual VGA support between the onboard and the ATi.

Try to borrow a cheap PCI card (Trident, S3, Sis) and repeat the test.

[dsmith@dca.net]

After reading about similar problems from eMachines systems with various ATI boards, I returned the ATI card and replaced it with an Nvidia-based PNY PCI card. This one worked out of the box with the current BIOS.

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm okay now.

[Rainbow]

So e-machines don't like ATi and PC Chips boards don't like nVidia - interesting...

[dsmith@dca.net]

All I can say for certain is that the problem I had with eMachines e733i and ATI Radeon 7000 32-MB PCI card went away when I installed the PNY nVidia-based adapter card instead. I did read a number of similar stories, some attributing the problem to "multi-monitor" support in the ATI that my BIOS did not support.

In any event, I am now operating without problems. Thanks.