Stuck in 16 colors! Can't load driver.. 3

[autodoc]

I have a Micro atx mainboard, AMD Athalon 1 gig. 1 gig of ram, and at this time nothing else connected. (ie..sound card etc..) Had win XP loaded and ran great for a yr...Then the HD went corupt. I replaced it with a maxtor 80 gig (had a maxtor 30 gig). And I could not get win XP to reload, would keep stalling. Swapped out the ram thinking thats the problem but still stalls.So I loaded ME, got everything running great including my monitor and tried to upgrade to XP. Kept on stalling!! Reformatted again, reloaded ME and now everything runs great but my monitor. I can only run on the default driver and default monitor. If i load mine I get a blank screen right after the ME screen upon reboot! Back to safe mode, default driver and everything works great...its an updated s3 prosavage driver that worked before. Could my mainboard or CPU be acting up? The error code i recieved once on reboot was OE:033F:00001885..
Any help would be GREAT!! Been a 2 week problem and the next driver I install just may be a Taylor Made! LOL

 

[mudskipper]

Okay, let's see if we can work this out....

If I understand correctly, you are running ME. You install your driver. This causes you to restart. After the Windows ME splash screen, it gives you no picture at all. You restart into safe mode, put the default driver back in, and then you go back into normal mode. Is that correct?

If so, then it sounds like the driver's default resolution setting is simply too high for your monitor. Install the video driver. When it restarts, force it into safe mode. Go to your display properties and set it to 16 colors, 640x480. Now, go into Normal Mode. Play with the settings and see if it will let you set it for a higher color depth. If everything works, then play with your resolution (assuming that you want it higher).

Does that help at all? Mudskipper
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Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[autodoc]

OK...I dont understand why but I had too much ram for me..I guess it was running out of addresses..I installed 256mb and XP loaded fast! everything ran great! If I install a 512 stick the system will begin freezing...So for now anyway I will leave 256 in and hope I find out why..the 512 is a known good stick..and it dont matter which slot i put the 256 in...everything runs good..
Before all this started I was running XP with a gig of ram with no problem at all.. Also..when I bought this pc it had 256 and ME I loaded xp no problem THEN i added ram...But for some reason if you try loading XP with 512 it hangs up!
Thanks for all and any help!!
Bill

 

[gargouille]

Sounds like a mis-matched RAM chip...are you sure it's the same kind of RAM?
It is surely NOT an issue with XP not being able to use 512...I've set up lots of systems with the CORRECT RAM at 512 and they hum!
The other possibility is that the motherboard wants the RAM in a certain slot...some boards have a preferred insertion order, some don't.

 

[mudskipper]

Yup, gargouille has a good point. XP works fine with 512. If you really want to use it, then take some time to figure out why it didn't work!! Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[autodoc]

yep....thats what it appears to be....ram of different flavors! I never knew you couldnt add ram of different brands. Even though there both double sided dram dimm's they dont get along very well! Thank you very much for all your help guys! Its another day of learning!!
Bill