Two new ATI cards one works the other does not

[jasperxpam]

My setup was a custom system with xp media running 3 monitors... two off a nvidia 8600 GT and one off of a PNY card. This ran for years and then the machine started randomly shutting down. The problem was traced to the cards. Apparently both caused shutdowns. A new ATI 4300/4500 was installed and it works great. I asked that a second card be installed and an ATI 7500 was stuck in. The tech was unable to get it working and I thought it might just be a matter of getting the settings right so I brought it home. Half a day later I realize I am not going to get there alone. The 4300/4500 is working very nicely but the driver for the 7500 displays the yellow triangle warning sign. An attempt to uninstall, reinstall a fresh downloaded driver produced requests for missing files which I "found" in the windows 32 directory but at the end I got a code 10. I would really like to have all three monitors going. Is it possible with these cards? And if so, how?

 

[rclarke250]

What are the rest of the specs of the computer? How large is the power supply, how many amps are on the 12V rail? the cards in question, what type of slots are they? PCI? PCI-E? a combination of different buses? what is the OS? and what SP is installed? Make and Model of the motherboard? How did both of the old cards cause shutdowns? did you see if the machine would run with just one of the cards installed? Or was this just what the computer tech told you? You have no idea how many parts I see replaced, that did not need replacing, always get your old parts back,especially old hard drives.

 

[tf1]

First thought that jumps out: is the power supply perhaps failing through age and is no longer able to maintain the current for two graphics cards?

If each graphics card is able to work on its own, it certainly points that way.

Time to change your tech adviser.


Regards: Terry

 

[BadBigBen]

Question:

does the OLD Radeon 7500 work at all?

when booting up the PC with that card only, does it display the POST screens, Windows load screen, or have you not attempted to boot the PC with JUST that card installed?

might be just a simple problem, in that that card is non functional from the get-go!



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[BadBigBen]

There may also be just an incompatibility in the drivers, meaning the older Radeon 7500 is compatible with the Catalyst version 6.11 and earlier only, but not the latest Catalyst versions for the HD 4500...

only other solution would be to get another card that uses the same driver model, or a non ATI card e.g. a Matrox...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[jasperxpam]

OK...have answers to spec questions AND have tested the 7500 card alone.
SPECS:
Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz(Contrl Pnl lists two of these)
Fry's FM7850
XP Media Center Edition V 2002 SP 3
Power Supply DYNEX DX-400WPS
Three 12v "rails"
+12v=14A yellow
+12v=15A Yellow/black
-12v=-.3A Blue
There are 3 slots for video cards
Before I started monkeying with the drivers and the cards the cards were in the following slots:
Radeon 4300/4500 PCI Express 2.0 in red slot (call it #1)
skip white slot (call it #2)
Radeon 7500 PCI was in white slot (call it #3)
After popping the case to get the info on the power supply, I removed the working 4300/4500 card and rebooted. The monitor came on with a bad image. Device info showed a problem with the driver so I downloaded the driver from AMD, uninstalled the Catalyst and ATI software per instructions at the website and rebooted. On Boot up the message No ATI graphics driver is installed and the install new Hardware Wizard started, I declined it's offer of help so I could run my downloaded installer package. During the install I got the severe error message INF Error Video driver not found and it recommended I install a generic VGA driver. The installer quit so I gave the Hardware Wizard a go. The Wizard failed because it could not find a driver. Unfortunately I do not have a CD. At this point I am pretty stuck and I worry that I may have uninstalled what I needed to run the 4300/4500... I could be worse off than before.
On the comments about my tech and condition of the machine when he got it. The computer would spontaneously quit, sometimes a few minutes after boot other times hours later. He removed one card it still quit. He removed the other card, replacing the first, it quit. Removal of both cards and install of 4300/4500 the machine ran 24 hours no problem.

 

[BadBigBen]

try the Radeon 7500 in the bottom slot (your definition: SLOT 4)...

The computer would spontaneously quit, sometimes a few minutes after boot other times hours later.

could be a power issue, so try another PSU, with at least 500w, best would be a namebrand like Enermax, Seasonic, etc...

He removed one card it still quit. He removed the other card, replacing the first, it quit. Removal of both cards and install of 4300/4500 the machine ran 24 hours no problem.

is a good indicator that something is wrong with the power delivery or bulging leaking capacitors, so take a closer look at the mainboard, take note of the capacitors and if they are bulging or leaking then forget the whole troubleshooting, and get a new board... see Capacitor Plaque as a reference as to what I am talking about...

At this point I am pretty stuck and I worry that I may have uninstalled what I needed to run the 4300/4500... I could be worse off than before.

you can always download the latest Catalyst driver (11.2) installer and run it for the HD 4x50...

having taken a look at the specs for the FM7850, the PC is using an ECS 915g-m mainboard, which has onboard graphics... now the question, why not use the onboard VGA instead of the Radeon 7500?


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[tf1]

I agree (for a second time) about the PSU. My suspicion is that it was barely sufficient for driving 2 graphics cards and over time has gradually lost its power.

I'm not sure that the on board graphics will work as many Mobos simply cut off the on board graphics automatically when another graphics card is plugged into the PCIe slot.


Regards: Terry