PC Constantly Reboots right before NT Splash Screen (Vid Card problem?

[bruns]

Running Windows 4.0 SP6a, 733 MHZ, 384 MB RAM. Was running fine for the last year. Installed a USB 2.0 PCI card yesterday and tried to boot up and I heard one long beep followed by 3 short beeps. Audio Error code table indicates "Video Failure". The monitor light reamains orange (never turns to green) and the system sounds like it will boot up but stops churning after a few seconds and just hangs. Monitor remains blank. PC is locked and must be forced off by the main power switch in back.

Removed current AGP Vid Card and installed NVidia G-Force MX 420 AGP card. System now begins boot up and also monitor is getting video (no more beeps) now but when it reaches the point of loading the NT splash screen, it reboots itslef. Same result when choosing NT VGA Mode or invoking Last Known Profile.
Also tried another PCI Vid Card with the same result as above.

I am guessing I may have somehow damaged the RAM of the original Vid Card(?) during installation of USB. Also guessing that the original vid card drivers are conflicting with the other two cards I am trying(?). Based on trying both AGP and PCI Vid cards with the same result, I am ruling out a problem with the AGP slot itself on the MoBo.

Only solution I can think of is to obtain a new card exactly the same as the original, however, I have no idea who the manufacturer is or model. Most searches I have done for "identify video card" suggest running a DEBUG routine at a DOS prompt which I can't get to.

Has anyone seen this before or know of a site that references visual identification of vid card?

 

[smah]

It could be a power supply problem. I had one do something similar w/ xp. At the splash screen, the video refresh rate & resolution. I would guess that the MX-420 draws quite a bit more power than the previous video card. It might be just a little too much for your power supply. If you can, try temporarilly unplugging any high power devices you can - extra hard drives, all usb devices.

 

[wolluf]

Why install a USB card in an NT machine - its not supported by NT?
Have you tried removing it? (its the only thing that you mention changed - and machine failed after you installed it, so obvious candidate for cause of failure).

 

[bruns]

To WOLLUF - Great point about NT and USB not meshing...didn't see that until after the fact

Anyway, as far as by "installing" the USB PCI card, i physically placed it into a PCI slot and then tried to boot up which is where my original Vid Card started to fail so I hadn't even gotten the sytem up to load drivers for USB. I physically removed the USB at that point from the PCI slot and have kept it out of the mix since.


Thanks for the reply!

 

[knporter]

There are two problems here. First as wolluf mentioned USB is not supported in NT. The second is IRQ sharing problems. USB cards usually try to use shared IRQ's and this is also not supported under NT. Almost anytime I have seen NT crash at the splash screen it is because of two or more devices are trying to use the same IRQ. "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover

 

[smah]

good pickup wolluf, I missed that one.

 

[bruns]

To KNPORTER : I went into PNP/PCI Config in the BIOS setup and indeed found that "Assign IRQ for USB" was ENABLED as well as "Assign IRQ for VGA". I changed the IRQ for USB to DISABLED, saved change and restarted. Still busts at the splash screen. Was that where to resolve the IRQ conflict?

Thanks!

 

[knporter]

I do not think this would help because I believe all this would have done is disable any onboard USB controller. The next step would be to get the new USB card to use the same IRQ that the onboard USB controller was using. I can think of two suggestions. First by moving the new card to another PCI slot this can sometimes force the card to use a different IRQ. The second is on some motherboard BIOS's you can manually assign specifig IRQ's to each PCI slot. Without knowing which motherboard you have I dont know if this is possible "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover