new graphics card and win 98

[chelsearamone]

i made a stupid mistake when installing a new graphics card for my sister on her crummy P3 PC......

I only delete the old card from the device manager (i did not delete the driver) before replacing the old pci card with this new one. Now at boot up the machine hangs at the wallpaper and will not show the desk top.

If i switch to the old card, it hangs at the same place.

I tried to get into safe mode so that i could by pass the driver but could not get this to start (I take it you press F6)

I thought I could boot from the win98 cd and hack around that way but the bios is password protected.

Q: Is there another way to get to DOS or safe mode so i can edit the files. Is there a way to remove this bios password.

Any help appreciated! otherwise my sister will kill me :-(



Ian

 

[Vetinari78]

on boot up press and hold f8, this will give u boot options and safe mode is on the list.
i thought booting directly to safe mode on 98 u pressed f4 though.

 

[fenix]

On 9x systems, F5 goes directly to safe mode, or as mentioned it can be accessed via the Start up menu, accessed by pressing F8 or holding the control button down after POST>

I assume that your sister doesn't know the bios password ? You can always remove the battery for about 15 minutes to reset the password, but everything will be set to default values, which probably is what is being used anyway

I'm wondering why Windows doesn't see new hardware and use vga default drivers to make the new card work, before it asks you for the correct drivers. Or why reinstalling the original card doesn't work either. I think there is an unknown factor in this scenario. I always thought that removing hardware in Device Manager DOES remove the related drivers.

When you use remove hardware in DM, unless the card is physically removed, it will 'find new hardware' on the next bootup. On the same token, if you removed it in DM, shutdown, and installed the new card, there shouldn't have been any problems.
Some things don't add up here.

 

[ceh4702]

Be careful adding a newer video card to an older computer. They changed the Voltage at around the time of the PIII and using the wrong video card could damage the motherboard. Since they reduced the voltage when they went to the VGA Pro Slot, a newer video card may not even run fast enough on an older motherboard. I put a VooDoo III 3000 on a Pentium II 350 and it did help quite a bit.

Another thing to do before removing the old video card is to turn down the resolution to the lowest setting your operating system can handle for a standard generic super vga monitor and changing the wallpaper to none or the generic green screen.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[chelsearamone]

thx for the suggested help. After lots of pain my sister found an old boot disk which was a big help.

i managed a win 98 reinstall from this. once i did this i was ok to remove the old driver file (although i had to repeat the sequence as at first i removed a .vxd file by mistake). The 'new' card is only a 32meg pci card (£16.50 from CCL) and she wanted it so that she could run the sims!!

her computer is really on it's last legs but you know how it is.......... i think it's part of the family and she won't let go!

i am still v. interested in removing the bios password protect. Is taking out the bios battery for 15 mins really the solution? as at least then i can go into the bios and change the boot sequence etc for future

 

[jonhiker]

There are two ways to remove a BIOS password/reset the BIOS:

1) remove the BIOS battery for 5-15 minutes(as stated before)
2) check in the Motherboard manual. There is sometimes a jumper setting to do the same thing.

This should clear the password. You'll also have to reset the other settings, ie time/date/boot order/PnP configs, etc.