What is the problem with my Riva TNT?

[ctswiz]

I've installed my Creative Riva TNT PCI into my motherboard. When I install the drivers and reboot, the system hangs when it's jusT finishing loading the drivers(The windows desktop hasn't come up yet.) I've tried the drivers on the CD and those on Creative's website, but they can't work. The Detonator drivers work fine, but I cannot set anything higher than 16 colours at 640x480. If I do so, the system gives me the same symptoms as before. Also, I cannot change the refresh rate of the video adapter, although I could do it with my previous video card. In the Color Depth options, there is ONLY choices for 16 colous, 256 colous and High Color(16 Bit). I just can't get my Riva TNT up and running. Can anybody help me?

[JimS]

What kind of system? Super 7 or Slot 1?

[jmeier]

You might want to try the development drivers from Nvidia for the TNT. I have a Viper 550 PCI and Diamonds drivers did not work very well, I used the Nvidia drivers and they worked fine for me. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the same case for you.

[ctswiz]

My system is an Intel Pentium 200 MHz-MMX, with 32MB of EDO Ram.
I've tried the Detonator Drivers fron nVidia, and they could work. However, I can't change the refresh rate of my monitor(which has already been specified), and I can only stick with 16 colors. There isn't even a choice for True Color 24 or 32-bit. I'm beginning to suspect that my TNT is faulty. Might that be the case, anyone?

[DavidX]

No, your TNT is probably not faulty.

I have an "antique" nvidia riva 128 (STB Velocity 128) and it MUST be assigned an IRQ by the BIOS in order to work properly. I suspect the TNT has the same requirement.

I note that your system is comparatively old. Does the BIOS have the ability to assign an IRQ to the PCI/video? Some older BIOSs do not have that ability. Check the properties for your TNT in Device Manager to see if it has been given an IRQ in resources.

The PCI slot must also have Bus Mastering enabled.

A classic symptom that an IRQ has not been assigned is when the video will only run in 16 colors @ 640x480 (the default). I repeat: it MUST be assigned an IRQ by the BIOS to run properly.

(BTW, the TNT is also VERY CPU dependent to run well; a 200MHz CPU is a little on the low side.)

DavidX



[This message has been edited by DavidX (edited 03-06-99).]

[cf1]

Make sure you disable video cacheable and
set assign irq to vga to enable in bios.

[soami]

I have a Viper 550 AGP with a Asus P2B PII 400 and 128 RAM PC100. My problems are exactly the same, though I can't get DirectDraw and Direct3D settings either. I tried innumerable settings on the motherboard, all kind of updated drivers from Diamond and NVidia and MBoard and Video BIOS are upgraded. The mentioned Assign IRQ to PCI/VGA setting is not available (the Asus card is supposed to assign it automatically). Anyway the assignment seem to be correct and doen't conflict.

Additionally the Windows Registry for the card (LocalMachine>System>Class>...etc...I can't remember right now al the tree) looks a little incomplete. A PCI Graphic Blaster I tried has a lot of more settings. And finally, SiSoft Sandra didn't detect correctly the amount of Video Memory and DirectX supports (the same with DXDIAG).

It has been a week now of frustrations....what may it be???

Regards people...

[jokostel]

it sounds like a dma/irq confliction to me.... go into safe mode beofor you win98 screen appears (F8). the goto your system folder and check for conflictions and doubles.... i have had problems before were my machine loves to setup hardware twice...hehe

[Paulo]

Hello
There is some info in this page

http://www.viper3d.com/help/help.html

I think may help.

[ctswiz]

Hey people, my problem IS solved, but at a price. My motherboard does have the assign IRQ to VGA card, and I tried that, but it didn't work. I tried downloading my motherboard BIOS and flashing it into my motherboard, but I ended up killing my motherboard. I had a change of motherboard then, one with a newer version of BIOS than my old motherboard. It seems that you must update the BIOS for the card to work. The card won't even work with motherboards which are about a year old(which mine is). Also, if the motherboard BIOS update doesn't work, try updating the TNT card's BIOS. It should work perfectly alright then. Mine's now working fine, except I do observe a bit of slowdown during loading time.

[soami]

Mine unaffortunately isn't still working (I have the Viper 550 with an Asus P2B and the same problems...). The Video and MB Bios are both updated. Although the Assign IRQ to VGA is not available (even with the old or new BIOS), the assignment isn't the problem, I think.
Last night (grr!) I found out that W98's Device Manager shows up overlapping memory ranges (2 ranges from the 5 that the Viper uses) that uses the Viper and the BX-to-AGP Device, Windows doesn't tell me that there's a conflict?!
I'm not allowed to move the Viper addresses, but moving the other ranges into free areas causes conflicts with the PNP BIOS Extension Card Device, which appearently wasn't in this ranges. I'm very frustrated and Diamond doesn't get me much help (OK, the 1st. time they replied me a long mail with all kind of things i found here too, but which didn't work).

Could someone show his/her memory uses of devices in W98 and tell me that it's OK or not or any additional help?

Thanks and sorry for the long message.

[ctswiz]

Why don't you try formatting your hard-drive and installing from a clean HDD? When I was experiencing problems with my card, Technical Support advised me to do that... If it doesn't work, I think you should try putting the card into another AGP slot and see whether it works??

[harddisk]

LOL !!
Those words are said by lazy technician.
and...there is only 1 AGP slot...FYI

[smunzli]

soami
your viper 550 shares a memory range with the agp controller at ranges FDFFFFFF and F3FFFFFF this is normal. are you running win95 or win98 if you are using win95 you must have usb installed off the cdrom for agp to work on win95, win95a or win95b(ver2.1) win95b( ver2.5) installs usb support. you do not need to have usb ports on your pc you just need the drivers. also viper must have directx ver6. as for sandra its says my board has only 8mgs also