AGP card and non-PnP monitor

[Bubblegoose]

I recently upgraded my mobo and also added a Diamond Stealth II G460 AGP card. I am also running W98 with an old CTX CVP-5468A monitor.

After installing the G460, my resolution is stuck at 640x480x16. Monitor properties in Device Manager comes up as "unknown monitor". Changing the settings in Control Panel to CTX-CVP5468A does not help. I also tried the generic SVGA setting.

I had to reinstall my old ISA SIIG SVGA card, and it works fine.

Why would the G460 not support the old monitor, when the "inferior" ISA card does?

Is this a PnP issue, or is the driver supplied by Diamond incompatible with W98? I tried alternate drivers from Diamond's tech support site to no avail.

I hate to have to chuck a functional monitor.

[augidog]

a couple stupid questions...
what generic driver did you use? try at least 1024X768 SVGA
did you try slowing down the refresh rate on your card to 60MHz?

[Bubblegoose]

To answer your questions: The generic setting I tried was 1024x768 SVGA, and I also tried setting the refresh rate to 60Hz.

Additional info: Mobo is Soyo SY-5EMA (super 7, AGP, ATX) with ETEQ 82C6638/6629 AGP chipset.

Currently have Cyrix MII PR300 processor installed.

Also tried installation with all other boards (modem, sound) uninstalled on the chance that some hardware/IRQ conflict might be at fault. Nope.

[augidog]

does the video driver appear to be installed properly? try a driver update from device manager?

[Eli]

Why not try setting the monitor to Plug and Play monitor? My old Tandy monitor works fine on that setting, as well as some old IBM monitors we have lying around. Worth a shot, eh? Good luck.

[Bubblegoose]

Eli: The standard "plug and Play Monitor" setting didn't change anything. Oh well...

Augidog: I tried reinstalling with the display adapter set to "standard VGA, 640x480". After reboot, I got an error message about my display adapter is not properly configured for my hardware. However, the only hardware settings control panel will allow my to make with the G460 is Standard VGA, 640x480x16.

Should I flash the card's BIOS with updated firmware from the manufacturer site? Diamond's support is an endless loop of autoresponders that keep redirecting me back and forth to more autoresponders.

[cobain1crt]

The new card was designed for good monitors (no insult). Although it is functional, your monitor just is not compatable.

[Bubblegoose]

No insult taken. Monitor was the next upgrade anyway; but I'll play with it for a while in case I get lucky.

Just curious: If the monitor can display up to 1024x768x64K with the 2MB ISA card, why can't it do the same with the AGP card? How do the cards "know" what they're outputting to?

[Eli]

I've found that the cards don't care what's connected to them. If the monitor can do it, the card should be able to pump it out. All I can say is look for better drivers... I know you already have, but I doubt there's much else you can do. I wouldn't count on a different monitor being any better. If it should give better resolutions and colors to this monitor and doesn't, why would it be different with a new monitor? Any chance you could try a different monitor?

[MickMitani]

This monitor is old enough that it may not support 60hz refresh above 640x480. Several older cards and monitors dropped down to lower refresh rates and even interlaced modes at 800x600 or 1024x768 resolutions. Your ISA card can do 1024x768 on the monitor but it doesn't tell us if it is running with an interlaced display and under 60hz refresh. Check your specs on the old ISA card and the monitor, if you have them. It is entirely possible that your new card can't go slow enough to support the monitor at the resolution you want.

[augidog]

hey, bubblegoose, what happened?

[Bubblegoose]

I had to back up all the apps first.

The AGP bus speed is set by hard jumpers on the MB; CPU bus=66MHz, SDRAM=66MHz, AGP Bus=66MHz, PCI bus=33MHz. That's the only available setting for the Soyo MB with a Cyrix MII PR300 installed.

I changed the CMOS settings for the other AGP parameters (init=1st, aperture=32M, hole=15M-16M, manually set IRQ).

I repartioned the HD and did a clean reinstall of W98, with a primary of 2.0G; and additional partitions for a swap file (200M), and the remainder partitioned for applications.

Still the same problem. I tried different IRQs; PCI Bus properties in Device Manager shows "some errors exist IRQ table" when IRQ steering is enabled. With it disabled, I get no change.

The AGP card is the only board installed, and no hardware conflicts are identified.

I downloaded CTX's latest revisions for their display drivers from their support site, but I have not installed them yet. The particular model I'm using is not among the updated drivers (as it is no longer in production), so I'm not sure they'll help.

I might try a different monitor just to put that issue to rest. But the message about the IRQ table is interesting.

Device manager lists several different sources one can select to obtain IRQ table data from; what do they mean?

[augidog]

i don't know about the IRQ routing, except my VIA chipset actually has an 'IRQ routing' setting in CMOS to choose between w95,w98, or VIA.
i have to make sure to have it set to VIA with patch installed.
from everything you have done, based on what i know, you should be running fine.
sorry, bubblegoose, but i am stumped.

augidog

[DavidX]

Bubblegoose

I have a feeling that the post by Mick Mitani (about four posts up) may have hit the nail on the head. Have you checked this out? Can you measure your refresh rate at 800x600 or 1024x768 with the ISA card to confirm?

Incidentally, as far as I am aware, display 'drivers' are basically nothing more than 'inf' files. They merely supply the system with information, such as the name of the monitor, its model number, what resolutions and refresh rates are supported, etc. You must use the one that is specific to YOUR monitor for them to be of any use. If you can't get one from CTX, it's quite easy to create your own - provided, of course, that you KNOW precisely the specifications of the monitor. It could, for instance, be dangerous to list a higher refresh rate than the monitor actually supports.

[goseve]

i recently had a simular problem with the same soyo MB. i spent hours working on it before installing a pci card in it. it seems the agp is very tricky on it. in my case it was not worth the lockups i could see down the road (or my customer). this was an win95 install, 98 should do better. good luck

[Bubblegoose]

For refresh rate: The only settings I am aware of are in Control Panel>Settings>Advanced>Adapter tab. With the ISA card driver installed (Cirrus logic 5429/30/34) selectable rates are Adapter default, optimal, 56Hz, and 60Hz. Any one of those works at all resolution settings (I normally use 800x600x64K).

With the G460 installed, the selectable settings are Adapter default and optimal only. Board specs range from 56-85Hz @ 800x600x64K resolution.

I flashed the MB BIOS with Soyo's latest rev, and also updated the AGP board's BIOS with Diamond's latest rev firmware (the documentation described the rev as correcting known problems with certain unspecified mobos displaying resolutions above 640x480x16 - hmmm).

Once I did that, I still got all the same post-installation errors.

I will try a monitor that I know is up to the task, but given the operating characteristics of the ISA board and the specs for the Diamond board, I'm not so sure it's the monitor.

[bharn]

I've got a generic 740 and had problems with my old board but not a newer (TYAN) one. Also this may have some impact:
With some of the newer Intel drivers there is a pause during the boot sequence where the lights on my moniter go a little crazy while the card actually interrogates my DDC2 PNP monitor. I haven't tried a non PNP but if the Diamond drivers are trying to do this and not getting a response......?????

[Bubblegoose]

When the card interrogates the PnP monitor, how does it do this? Does it check the registry for which driver(s) are active? Or does it actually send a test signal down the monitor cable?

If that is the case, are there electronics in the monitor that respond to the query signal, or is it just certain pins shorted (to gnd) that id the monitor to the card?

I haven't seen much information on the specific schemes/protocols for PnP. It is interesting, considering the problem I am having with my display.

[etcm]

I have a similar "old CTX" 5432 model. It too will not achieve any setings higher than 640x480 on either Win95 or NT4.0. The monitor is old and I use it on a server so it is not too crucial.

[DaveRinPA]

Here's a fresh though . . .

Go to Display-Properties-Settins-Advanced-Monitor . . . and

UNCHECK "Automatically detect plug-and-pray monitors."

Thought - - - It may be that NONE of your "monitor choices" are sticking because Win98 is auto detecting your "old" monitor as a wierd inaccurate PnP monitor, and resetting it to minimum standards with every boot-up hardware detection phase.

Just a thought, as I had a similar problem with drivers not "taking" with an old monitor.

THEN try the generics (1024x768, etc.).

I also wouldn't worry too much about over-freq-ing your "old" monitor.
Just apply the changes WITHOUT rebooting, and (if the monitor sizzles) hit ESC quickly.

I've never fried a monitor by BRIEFLING freq-ing it too high. After all, one must experiment.

[Bubblegoose]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I tried that already.

I found that completely disabling PnP in BIOS and manually setting all IRQs gets the monitor to work with the AGP card. I had to also install updated drivers for CTX monitors, using "5468NI" (non-interlaced...well, well, well) for my selected driver in Control Panel display settings.

The only problem is that when Windows 98 initializes, it clicks the display on and off several times. It seems violent; I wonder if it could damage the card or monitor. (Of course the fix for that is to leave the machine on all the time.)

All this leaves me with some questions.

1. How does BIOS poll PnP devices on power up? I understand how it interrogates boards, but PnP monitors? Printers?

2. When you add a device in Windows (new hardware "wizard") it updates the registry. Does it also write to the resource table in BIOS NVRAM? Then why have both; either one should do the job of allocating resources.

I suspect the problems with the monitor had something to do with a disparity between registry and NVRAM settings.

Am I making sense, or am I being ignorant? Does anybody have some links to good tech data on PnP specs, particularly how BIOS and Windows identify devices and allocate resources?

Thanks to everyone and their helpful insights! Now that it works, I want to know why it works...