Jeff7
01-17-2000, 12:06 AM
I recently upgraded to a GA-5AX motherboard with an ALi 1541 northbridge chipset and a 1543C A1 southbridge chip. My TV tuner is a Phoebemicro TV Master - based on Brooktree's bt848 chip. The video card is a TNT2 M64 32MB AGP card.
The problem:
The TV output window now shows this: the entire picture is squished into the left half of the window, and the right half is stationary static. And it freezes the system shortly after. Strange things about this: it works in preview mode, but that is sluggish and pixelated. If I record an AVI file off of the TV, it comes out just fine. I just can't get the TV to display like a normal TV should. And the sound works fine, even after the computer is completely locked up.
Driver info:
Using AGP update v1.65e. Phoebemicro hasn't issued a driver update for the TV card for many months now - the driver date is from early 1998. The video card: I have tried the following driver versions direct from nVidia: 2.04, 2.06, 2.08, 2.17, 3.53, 3.66, 3.68. The 3.xx drivers will only work with AGP v1.60, otherwise they freeze the system. And I heard that they do not have the Direct Draw drivers needed for the TV card. I am now using v2.17 of the Detonators.
BIOS for the motherboard is most recent.
I am using v3.55 of the IDE drivers.
I also tried the TV card with a system without AGP, IDE, or any ALI drivers installed - it had a TNT board. Same problem. I had a 440LX based mthbd before - TNT and TV coexisted quite peacfully - even if the computer did a dead-lockup - mouse, keyboard wouldn't respond, the TV window kept showing TV and played sound.
I tried e-mailing Gigabyte about this. They apparently aren't really aware that they have e-mail - they rarely answer anything. Phoebemicro is similar. The only advice I've gotten has been "Update your drivers" even though I told them that I was using the most recent versions of everything I could.
I heard that the chipset won't allow the TV card to bus master the video card. PCIList says the only PCI/AGP device in the system that's NOT bus-master enabled is the network card. Also, there are no IRQ conflicts in the system. USB is on 11, video is on 10, TV has 9. I've tried many BIOS setting combinations, many driver combos, other newsgroups; still no solution.
That's about all the info I can think of right now. I guess you can tell, I've been-there, done that with quite a bit; I've been trying to find a fix for this for about a month now. I don't know if a new TV card will fix this - most of them out there seem to use the bt848 chip, so I might have the same problem. Of course, other companies, such as Hauppgauge(sp?) and IX Micro actually issue driver updates. And they respond to tech support inquiries.
Anyone with this setup? Any suggestions?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
The problem:
The TV output window now shows this: the entire picture is squished into the left half of the window, and the right half is stationary static. And it freezes the system shortly after. Strange things about this: it works in preview mode, but that is sluggish and pixelated. If I record an AVI file off of the TV, it comes out just fine. I just can't get the TV to display like a normal TV should. And the sound works fine, even after the computer is completely locked up.
Driver info:
Using AGP update v1.65e. Phoebemicro hasn't issued a driver update for the TV card for many months now - the driver date is from early 1998. The video card: I have tried the following driver versions direct from nVidia: 2.04, 2.06, 2.08, 2.17, 3.53, 3.66, 3.68. The 3.xx drivers will only work with AGP v1.60, otherwise they freeze the system. And I heard that they do not have the Direct Draw drivers needed for the TV card. I am now using v2.17 of the Detonators.
BIOS for the motherboard is most recent.
I am using v3.55 of the IDE drivers.
I also tried the TV card with a system without AGP, IDE, or any ALI drivers installed - it had a TNT board. Same problem. I had a 440LX based mthbd before - TNT and TV coexisted quite peacfully - even if the computer did a dead-lockup - mouse, keyboard wouldn't respond, the TV window kept showing TV and played sound.
I tried e-mailing Gigabyte about this. They apparently aren't really aware that they have e-mail - they rarely answer anything. Phoebemicro is similar. The only advice I've gotten has been "Update your drivers" even though I told them that I was using the most recent versions of everything I could.
I heard that the chipset won't allow the TV card to bus master the video card. PCIList says the only PCI/AGP device in the system that's NOT bus-master enabled is the network card. Also, there are no IRQ conflicts in the system. USB is on 11, video is on 10, TV has 9. I've tried many BIOS setting combinations, many driver combos, other newsgroups; still no solution.
That's about all the info I can think of right now. I guess you can tell, I've been-there, done that with quite a bit; I've been trying to find a fix for this for about a month now. I don't know if a new TV card will fix this - most of them out there seem to use the bt848 chip, so I might have the same problem. Of course, other companies, such as Hauppgauge(sp?) and IX Micro actually issue driver updates. And they respond to tech support inquiries.
Anyone with this setup? Any suggestions?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.