AGP 3D? Why did I bother?

[Sensibilium]

Hi,

I just recently bought a brand-spanking-new Hercules 3D Prophet II MX 64MB for my aging-but-able PII-333 on a 6BX motherboard (Gigabyte GA-686BX to be precise), but after I removed my PCI Video card, installed the 3d card into my AGP port, and switched on, I got nothing (as such).

What I actually got was no power to the monitor (ie. the monitor stayed on standby), 1 long continuous beep followed by 3 beeps in quick succession, and then it shutdown.

I have looked through my Award BIOS (v4.51PGM) settings for a mention of AGP but to no avail. I now assume I need to upgrade my BIOS, I've searched the internet all day and come up with nothing.

Any idea's if I'm on the right track or am I missing something blatently obvious?

Thanks
Ahdkaw
"What would you expect from a bunch of monkeys?"

http://www.sensibilium.com

 

[Sensibilium]

I have managed to get my AGP port running! I'm not sure how, but the last thing I did was change the 'VGA Boot From' to 'PCI', saved the BIOS and rebooted. The power came to my monitor, and the 3D card BIOS info was displayed, and then continued to load windows.

However, I cannot seem to get the card recognised by Windows other than as a 'Standard Display Adapter (VGA)', even when I set the Hardware Wizard to search the 3D card driver disk, it comes up with nothing! Next I'm going to look for the latest 3D Prophet II drivers and see if that helps.

There is one side issue, concerning my bios. According to windows device manager my ACPI BIOS could not load 'because the computer is reporting two ACPI.SYS bus types (Code 2)'. Do I need to look for ANOTHER BIOS update?
Award BIOS v4.51PG now (maybe I need v4.51PGM or v5?)

Thanks in advance,
Ahdkaw
"What would you expect from a bunch of monkeys?"

http://www.sensibilium.com

 

[edfair]

sometimes the install set is to change the driver after initial setup. There can be 4 or 5 ways to get drivers loaded and finding the right one can be a pain. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Sensibilium]

My whole post has become a bit of a side-issue now, I downloaded what seemed to be my original BIOS, so I could fix my earlier updates which seemed to be causing the computer to report 2 bus types, it failed... badly...

The BIOS update told me, 'Erasing, please wait', and then it said 'Erase failed' and stopped. I reset my machine ('what an arse', flashed thru my brain), and nothing happened, no boot, nothing. My experiment with BIOS updates has failed...

So, I am at somewhat of a dilemma, where do I get a new BIOS chip, or do I really need to upgrade my motherboard (and hence new processor, new memory, at more expense than I can presently afford)?

I will be looking for a new BIOS that works with my board (686BX - i440BX), and then if thats successful, I will have to do Win98 reinstall, just to make sure.

More problems to come I'm sure, so hold on to your hats!

Cheers
Ahdkaw
"What would you expect from a bunch of monkeys?"

http://www.sensibilium.com

 

[Sensibilium]

I've recently found out from my motherboard manufacturer that my AGP port is, as I had suspected, only 1x AGP Compliant. That explains why the card wouldn't work then...

I've got myself a PCI 32MB version of the same card instead, I just hope it wasn't a waste of money... Ahdkaw
"What would you expect from a bunch of monkeys?"

http://www.sensibilium.com

 

[MACHiNESMiTH]

Well, What happened?