pci card in gateway 6400 machine

[Pinkpig]

Hello all

I have a gateway 6400 machine(dual pIII with scsi, with serverworks chipset). I just bought a PCI video card (nvidia FX 5200) for it to try and setup dual monitor. there's no agp slot =(

This machine is very picky with what works and not. Well my video card doesnt work =(

once i installed it during post i see that it detects it cuz it tells me its 128mb and its a nvidia and which card it is etc....

then further down the boot process it says

"reboot and select proper boot device, or insert boot media in selected boot device"

and it wont boot further, hitting any button on the keyboard presents that message again. Is it because the video card disabled my scsi??

anyone know what the problem might be or know of anyone with this machine?? this machine is very picky with hardware =(

thanks
Laura

 

[Aslan]

After checking Gateway's "support" website (which is even more useless than Compaq's, which I thought was impossible), I can't really think of many answers other than this.

1: Try putting the video card in a different PCI slot other than the ones you have already tried, there may be an IRQ conflict between the Video card and the SCSI. I can't really see the video card disabling the SCSI except for this scenario.

Also, maybe check if you have disabled the on-board video, although from your description, it sounds like you have done so.

I know this is not very much at all, but I hope it helps.

 

[Th0r]

I might be way off here but maybe you can get a updated BIOS and see if that works...

And check to see if you have on-board graphics disabled just in case....

If all else fails take back the NV5200 PCI and get a new motherboard....depending on how much you have maybe you can get a nice AGP card like a R8500LE like mine... That ahs 2 heads on it for dual monitoring

 

[Pinkpig]

Thanks for the replies....
I dont see any option in the bios to disable the onboard video. But i think it does it automatically because i had a ati 3d rage pro pci card in there and i never had to change or disable the onboard video for it to work. But with this new nvidia PCI card it wont even boot up all the way =(
I tried all the PCI slots also =) even the 64-bit slots and that didnt work.

i checked to see if there was a latest bios version , but it doesnt seem like gateway put one out for this machine =(

Aslan if it was an IRQ conflict do you know how i can fix it?

Thanks again
Laura

 

[Aslan]

Well, according to what I've read, the SCSI card usually is assigned IRQ 11, while the video card is also given the same. You might be able to solve the problem by disabling everything on-board that you don't use, and/or also by going into the bios and changing the IRQ from there for the video card (or the SCSI, if it doesn't allow you to enter the bios with the video card installed).

I've done this within Windows, but never within the bios since I've never had the need to. Most likely the bios will allow you to select the specific PCI slot that an IRQ should be used for.

According the the Gateway 6400 Manual, it should be possible to do this from the "Advanced" Tab within the Bios.

If all else fails, the only other solution would be to return/exchange the video card for another, I doubt this, but there maybe a problem with the video card itself.

 

[Pinkpig]

Thanks Aslan, i will take a look in the bios later to see if i can change IRQ.

i just checked on my computer the IRQ for the scsi and the ati pci card tht i have in there to see what IRQ its assigned and

for the ATI pci card its 18
and the scsi controllers have IRQ 24 and 25

Thanks again
Laura

 

[Needitcooler]

You wouldn't happen to have a floppy in the drive would you?

Have you tried reinstalling your old PCI card to make sure the new PCI card is the problem?

 

[Papa_Legba]

Does that thing have a connector for PSU power?

 

[TUK101]

You may have a jumper on the motherboard that you need to move to disable the onboard video. Look on the inside of the side cover or on the bottom the case for a jumper configuration schematic. Or there is always the good ole' manual that you could check if you have one. Other than the IRQ conflict I cannot think of anything else that could be causing the problem. I used to have the same problems with an Emachines that I had, but it was just a matter of disabling the onboard graphics with a jumper on the motherboard. Good luck.

 

[Pinkpig]

Thanks for all the reply's

I finally had time to try some settings out, but nothing worked =(

I dont think i can manually disable to onboard video. There is no jumper setting that i can see on the motherboard to disable it also.I think it does it automatically, because i have 2 PCI cards now. a ATI one and a NVIDIA one. When i install the ATI PCI card it works and i guess onboard video is disabled automatically because i didnt change any settings for the ATI card to work. But when i plug the Nvidia card in , and it doesnt work anymore. So from the suggestions you guys have made, i believe its an IRQ problem. So within the bios i found anything that said IRQ and i disabled them =) Some things like Serial port IRQ, Parallel port IRQ, and there was something under the POWER menu and it mentioned IRQ1,IRQ12,IRQ14 and next to each one it said [monitor] i guess its to monitor the power??

then i saw another option that said
allocate IRQ to PCI vga so i made sure that its enabled and it was allready.

i also played with turning off the USb Funtion.

I am clueless to why it doesnt work. The video card keeps disabling my scsi i think.

THe card works fine because i tested it in another machine and i was able to install everyting and had it working.


anymore suggestions or help would be great.
Thanks
Laura

 

[Aslan]

As you mentioned earlier, it may just be an incompatibility problem between your computer and the nVidia video card.
If an IRQ is automatically assigned to the PCI video card, then there shouldn't be any problems.

However, as long as the ATI PCI Video Card is comparable to the nVidia (in both speed and price) I don't think you need to worry about it anymore, and just return the nVidia card.

 

[Pinkpig]

yea it probably isnt compatible =( but the nvidia card is much better then the ATI card. wayyyy better hehe...
but i guess im outta luck this time.

thanks
Laura