Oolite Bulletins

I wasn't sure which would be the right forum for this, so I'm posting here...

I just bought an Nvidia Geforce 5200 graphics card (mainly to play Oolite properly) and I'm having a hell of a time getting it to work. It slotted in beautifully, and the fan works so it must be getting power. However, neither Windows nor Linux detect it and when I try to download and install the driver, in either operating system, I get error messages as it can't see the card.

Any ideas?

hi,
does your motherboard have an on-chip graphics card? if so have you disabled it in the bios? the settings are usually in the 'integrated peripherals' section of the bios.
does the card also need to be connected to your power supply unit - i had a quick browse for that type of card and i didn't see any that actually needed this though so this probably isn't it.
have you been to nvidia's website and downloaded the latest drivers?

any beeps from the motherboard?

No beeps from the motherboard, and it appears to be getting power as the fan goes.

I'll try the BIOS settings and get back to you.

is the image you are getting from the new card in a very low resolution and only in about 16 colours? if so then it sounds like you pc doesn't like the driver you are trying to install. i checked the nvidia site and they only seem to offer one or two big driver packages that cover a whole range of cards, it's a big download but if you can try downloading and running one, you'll want to select "graphics driver -> GeForce and TNT2 ->(your windows version)" in the menu options on the 'download drivers' section of the www.nvidia.com website.

The nvidia downloads didn't work - they said no hardware detected. Worse still, I tried changing the BIOS as suggested and now my PC is completely out of action; I couldn't find "Integrated Peripherals" but I found "onboard VGA" under "Advanced" and disabled it. Now it won't start up or recognise anything.....

Any sugestions?

That sounds like a bum card to me. The "onboard VGA" was the right thing to disable. I'm most convinced by the fact that the nVidia driver software doesn't recognize the card. This indicates that the card is either broken or not getting the power it needs.

oh heck, sorry about making the problem worse! i think you'll now have to reset the bios on the pc, that should put the pc back to it's defaults and re-enable the onboard vga allowing you to get your monitor working again, but you'll probably have to re-enter in the date & time, autodetect the hard disks etc.
i wonder if the agp slot on your motherboard isn't able to supply enough power to the card, if i remember some older boards supplied 1.5v but the newer cards need 3.3v? it could also be that the card is broken and needs returning for a replacement.

OK I got the BIOS working again but still can't get the card to work. Before, the computer didn't know it was there, now it refuses to boot with the card fitted. Apparently my motherboard can only support a 1.5v card; does anyone know if the Nvidia GeForce 5200 is a 1.5v or a 3.3v? I can't find out anywhere on the net.

Oh, the joys of ebay...

Edit - I just found out it's 0.8/1.5v so it should have enough power. May be just a bum card, but could the problem be with the motherboard?

hi,
phew, glad you got your computer working again after following my 'advice'! sorry about that, nothing worse than switching on your pc to just get whirring fans and nothing else!
Well, i'm out of ideas, i suppose the only thing left is to try the card in another computer to see if it works there, but to be honest it does sound as if it's faulty, especially with the pc not booting with it installed. when you first power on a pc it does a quick hardware health check and it seems to be failing this when you have the card installed, but as to whether it''s the card or the agp slot on the motherboard that has the problem i'm sorry i don't know how to check, but my guess is that it's the graphics card

The "onboard VGA" was the right thing to disable.

According to the instructions for my motherboard, in the "Advanced" menu there's a "Primary VGA BIOS" menu, with the options PCI VGA Card, AGP VGA Card and Onboard VGA. Might one of these be worth trying before writing off my card as a dud?

hi, i just checked my motherboard manual (asus a7n8x) and i have a 'primary VGA Bios' option in my settings too, i've got an AGP video card in my system and this option in my bios is set to AGP VGA Card, so it might be worth changing this setting in your bios to match your new card as a last resort. My manual says this about the option "This field sets the priority for the display of VGA signals", i'm not sure if i'm right, but it's best to beware that changing this setting in your bios might deactivate your on-board video and stop you seeing anything on your monitor if your Geforce card is faulty.

I reset my bios to AGP VGA Card and it detected and installed the graphics card fine. Yippee! Thanks for the advice, it all worked out in the end.