G3Ti200 Pro-TD128 Crashes System

J

johnk425

Guest
I have been trying to get my MSI G3Ti200 Pro-TD128 to display correctly. Upon boot up, the system crashes (from time to time). When I press the reset button for a warm boot-up, WindowsME loads fine. Once the desktop appears, Windows is stuck in the basic 16-color old VGA mode. At first I thought it was a hardware conflick, so I removed all devices and cards. I even tried swapping the DIMMs with known good DIMMs (in case of bad memory). Nothing worked. I thought maybe there's a conflick between CMOS resources and WindowsME resoures, so I tried to force Windows to use the CMOS settings. That did not work either. Then I tried to force CMOS to change resourse settings to allow Windows to use the resoureces available. That did'nt work. I flashed the motherboards bios to the lasest revision and tried everthing again, that did'nt work. Then I tried using different drivers and proformed the same porcedure again.
This has lead me to believe that my old Motheboard/CPU cannot handle this display card.

Any suggestions would be very helpful.

My motherboard is a Tyan K7 (S2380) "early" AMD socket-A board. Memory is at about 640Mb, one HDD ATT66 30Gb. Chipset is a VIA Apollo KX-133 (I tried using the lasest drivers for that too). This motherboard uses a Award BIOS 2Mbit Flash RAm that supports APM & ACPI (which I also tried enabled and disabled modes). This board does not have it's own audio ports. It runs on a 200Mhz Front side bus and is using an eary 1Ghz AMD CPU (Socket-A). The DIMMs are a PNY 256Mb PC-133, there are three installed.
Other PCI cards used include a Soundblaster 5.1 Platium sound card, Soundblaster DXR3 5.1 Dolby Digital encoder (for use with a 5x DVD IDE drive), a PCI 100/baseTX network card, a Firewire adapter card, a PCI WINTV-HDD card (for displaying HD-TV on computer).
There has to be a way that I can get this display card to work. I tried a "fresh" reinstalation of WindowsME. In WindowsMe, it did not show any conflicks at all.

Could my suspicion about the motherboard be correct? Or is there something else that I could try?

When Windows asks me to adjust the display settings, I try to change it to at least 256-colors and reboot. The display goes back to 64-colors. It's almost as if the display drivers are loaded, but don't function. I am going to try older drivers for this display card to see if any of them work. So, far I have spent 3 full days trying to get this thing to work.

Please Help...

Thank you.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
johnk425,

Well there are a few things I am thinking:

1) There is a lot of hardware in your system, can the Power Supply Handle it all?

2) You are running SB Live!, is it on IRQ 5 and is that PCI Slot not being shared?

3) Did you update to the Latest 4in1 Via Drivers?

4) I would try pulling all the PCI cards out of the computer and just try running with HD, Optical Drive, Vid Card and see if you get problems then.

Good Luck,

Richard
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for the help.
I already tried everthing possible, to get the display card to work. I know the card works fine in my other computer. The via chipset in this motherboard is not compatible with the display card. My older display card (3DFX 5500) works fine. I have been thinking for some time before about updating the computer for Pentium 4. This problem that I had, has made me deside to upgrade now.
I ran into this type of problem before. The only way to fix it, was to upgrade Windows or replace the motherboard. I was hoping to find an alternative. After serveral attempts and various methods, my only option left is to replace the motherboard.
There are two "hidden" system drivers installed within WindowsMe. I believe for each PCI card installed. One is called, "ACPI IRQ Holder For PCI IRQ". The other is called, "PCI IRQ Holder". Something like those anyway, I'm not sure the exact wording. ACPI helps the bios to control standby opperations within the bios. I went through both drivers, they had somthing to do with the problem. Disableing these drivers prevent the cards form working at all.
Some chipset versions work better than others. Intel and Via have several different chipsets used in the Pentium 4 class motherboards. The problem now is to deside which one to pick.

I have to research the matter.

Thanks again for the help.

Now that the prices finally went down on computer products, upgrading cost is almost nothing. Not like twenty years ago, it would cost a fortune just to install a set of DRAMs.

Originally posted by Deathstalker
johnk425,

Well there are a few things I am thinking:

1) There is a lot of hardware in your system, can the Power Supply Handle it all?

2) You are running SB Live!, is it on IRQ 5 and is that PCI Slot not being shared?

3) Did you update to the Latest 4in1 Via Drivers?

4) I would try pulling all the PCI cards out of the computer and just try running with HD, Optical Drive, Vid Card and see if you get problems then.

Good Luck,

Richard
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
johnk425,

I would try the Via Forum to ask for ideas from them. I know you do not have an MSI motherboard, but I am sure they would have ideas for working around your problems.

I would say it is Via Related.

Richard
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
That's right I believe johnk425

I had a problem once with Nvidia Graphic Card from Elsa with the VIA chipset. I used to have those blue screens. Unless you download the latest 4in1 utility for your mainboard you will still suffer from hanging up and freezes.

I hope this will help you.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Back
Top