Possible to have 8800GT as main and PCI Radeon 9250 as a secondary card?

[jivetrky]

So I have an 8800GT which seem to have issues with TV out (at least with recent drivers). And it doesn't look like Nvidia is going to address this any time soon. So I found an old radeon 9250 (Looks just like this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241031)) and hoped to use it's TV OUT Svideo to go to my old TV. But when windows boots I get a black screen. I assumed that perhaps it was booting to the 9250 as the default, but I switched the monitor to that card and it was still black. Not sure what to do here. Is it just not possible to use this PCI card? Am I overlooking something?

BTW, I never installed any catalyst drivers or anything, just planned to use the default windows drivers. In the past I had a 7900GTX and put in an x700 as a secondary and it worked fine until I installed the ATI drivers, then there was chaos.

Any help?

[Cuiiey]

isnt the radeon 9250 an agp card?

[jivetrky]

isnt the radeon 9250 an agp card?

perhaps it comes in both varieties?

If you look at the link I gave, that is definitely a PCI card. As well as the one I have (The one I have is actually a Visiontek card, but looks very similar)

[bryan_d]

Make sure that you have the PCI-E slot as the primary in the BIOS options.

I had a heck of a time trying to get my old 7500LE PCI working in a computer, and just gave up for the time being...

Hope you have better luck than me,
bryan d

[BossBorot]

its possible sometimes but luck has a great deal to do with getting it to work properly.

I have done something similar before and from my own experience it helps to install only raw drivers and not control programs like CCC along with the drivers when mixing companies

Also situations really varry when trying to get this to work as you are trying to get your mobo to take it along with the cards. Mess around with some bios settings like display priority and if that doesnt work just keep messing around with settings till you get fed up or find the answer

[jivetrky]

its possible sometimes but luck has a great deal to do with getting it to work properly.

I have done something similar before and from my own experience it helps to install only raw drivers and not control programs like CCC along with the drivers when mixing companies

Also situations really varry when trying to get this to work as you are trying to get your mobo to take it along with the cards. Mess around with some bios settings like display priority and if that doesnt work just keep messing around with settings till you get fed up or find the answer

yeah, I tried setting display priority. And the 8800GT displays fine during bootup. I hooked a second monitor to the other card and it did NOT display during bootup. So I suppose there is the possibility that it just doesn't work? IDK. But I gave up later last night and took out the PCI card.

[zbo]

If your using vista, with aero on, then the drives for all cards have to be the same. That may be the issue.

[Wiggy Fuzz]

let's try and fix the card, then :D

what exactly was wrong with the 8800 GT tv out?

[jivetrky]

let's try and fix the card, then :D

what exactly was wrong with the 8800 GT tv out?

I have a major issue with it. Second display (The TV out display) doesn't want to stay enabled. If I make ANY kind of change to resolution or any other display setting on either the TV or the main display, the TV Out signal dies and will not reenable until I reboot. And the problem seems to be simply that it is trying to output at 60Hz refresh, when my TV can only do 30hz. When it first boots it works fine and displays at 30Hz (or possibly 29hz, either way it works). But if I try to do ANYTHING to the settings, ie change resolution on either display, change refresh rate on either, even change the orientation of one display to the other (changing so the TV, which is physically to the right of my display, is displayed virtually on my PC as being to the right).
EDIT: Also, I can reboot and have the TV OUT work. I watch my DVD or whatever I want to do, then go to normal PC usage. Then say I play a 3D game. Well switching to 3D mode, or switching to the play resolution of the game, or whatever it is, disables the TVOUT and it will not come back until reboot. I also used to use Windows Media Center for the TV out display. This way I could navigate through the movies I have on my PC, etc. Well that does something screwy with the display when it starts and ends, so that also will not work. Even Windows Media Player does it. It works fine when you fullscreen the video, but once you close WMP, it disables the TVout. I've found that only VLC will work without disabling it.

I've googled my fingers off trying to find a fix and some people with older drivers have had luck by enabling the old style control panel and then forcing the settings. But, when I enable the old style control panel, none of those options are there for me. I assume this is because I am using the latest driver and those options are no longer available. So I suppose I could just use an old driver, but then I cannot run new games (ie Farcry2, etc).

I've also tried using Rivatuner to force the refresh rate, but that also does not work. Since the TV's default resolution, which gets set by the system, is at 800x600, I told Rivatuner to force 30Hz Interlaced on any resolution of 800x600. Didn't work. Also tried several other variants of that idea.

But in my googling, it seems that this is a very common issue with the 8800GT specifically. This is why i was excited when i found a free card that has TV out. But alas I cannot get it to work. I could try zbo's idea of disabling Aero, but that's another concession I don't really want to have to make. I think I just need to wait until tax return time and sell my 8800GT and get a newer, affordable card.

[Neuromancer]

If your using vista, with aero on, then the drives for all cards have to be the same. That may be the issue.

Really? that is good news. I thought Vista did not support heterozygous driver models at all. I used to run ATI/nVidia dual card setups in XP but have not needed to in Vista (full screen video and full screen gaming at the same time is perfect on a 4850, with my x1950 it worked but gaming took a hit.)

[jivetrky]

(full screen video and full screen gaming at the same time is perfect on a 4850, with my x1950 it worked but gaming took a hit.)

Really? Are you outputting through TVOut or second display? Perhaps my next card will have to be 4850/70

[Neuromancer]

Really? Are you outputting through TVOut or second display? Perhaps my next card will have to be 4850/70

DVI to VGA adapter for 24" WS CRT, DVI to HDMI adapter for 26" LCD TV. (now subbed out to 22" WS LCD, since the HDTV is in the living room)

[babai]

Looks like you have some serious configuration issues.

[MadMan007]

Really? that is good news. I thought Vista did not support heterozygous driver models at all. I used to run ATI/nVidia dual card setups in XP but have not needed to in Vista (full screen video and full screen gaming at the same time is perfect on a 4850, with my x1950 it worked but gaming took a hit.)

I'm pretty sure you're right, having Aero on or off shouldn't matter. One video driver is part of the Vista driver model, but that will be changed in Win7 iirc.

[huskernation]

may be more of a headache than its worth