jim428
09-21-1999, 11:05 AM
Hi, I have a PII 300 with 160 megs of SDRAM. I have been running win98 with multi-mon for about a year now with 3 ATI Expert@Play 98 8 mb video cards. I changed my primary video card to a Stealth III S540 but then had to change back to the original 3 ATI setup. The computer then froze when I tried to extend the desktop to the other two monitors, and now it freezes when I just click on the Settings tab in Display Properties. I have all the latest card drivers, and I have tried pulling out all the cards and installing them one by one, and nothing has worked: I still can not access the Setting tab without freezing.
Thanks for any help or suggestions,
Jim
LazMan
09-23-1999, 12:23 AM
Garsh! This is not something that I normally run into. I don't think I've dealt with anyone having more than a single video card in a machine.
The fact that you're using ATI cards leads me to believe that you possess their install CD. This CD contains a bunch of diagnostic programs that can dig into virtually every video issue their cards are designed to deal with. Also, the folks at ATI have a very good tech support department, send them an email, describing your problem.
Evidently, the primary card is working already to some degree or you wouldn't be getting anything to look at in the first place... My first inclination when running into video problems is to boot to SAFE mode and remove all video cards from the device manager AND remove any programs that show up in the Add/Remove dialog referencing the card or the manufacturer of the card, then set video to boot using a standard VGA setting - make sure you have the driver CD or disks handy. Shutdown Safe mode in the normal fashion, no restart! Turn off the computer if it's not ATX, then unplug it and remove the case if it's not already open. Making sure you taken ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) into consideration, remove all the video cards and plug in whatever card you want as primary video. Turn on the computer and pay attention to the bootup (press the ESC key when the windows clouds come into view - this will show the DOS terminal screen and allow you to view whatever messages appear during the bootup process) sequence for any errors. If the computer boots up without any problems, then plug-n-pray should find your video card and either load the driver (based upon the registry path where it was loaded from previously and the removal process didn't eliminate it - not unusual...) from the hard drive or ask for the driver with a dialog. If it asks, insert the driver CD or disk and let it install normally. It will most likely want you to reboot, or it may go ahead and finish the final bootup and display your desktop giving you a dialog box informing you that a reboot is needed. In either case, reboot. Once you are back to your desktop, check the device manager to make sure the driver loaded properly and that there aren't any conflicts. If all's well, try to open the display manager and deal with the settings. Then, try again on the other cards, being careful and methodical.
Let me know if this is what you're asking for, or if there is more information I could give you...
Good Luck! /forum/smile.gif
Laz