Video cards and XP (Pro)

[Gnarly]

I have run into an interesting problem. Afetr I put an SiS 315 card into my XP box, I noticed during the boot sequence that the display adapter did not have an IRQ assigned. It actually said "NA". This is interesting because immediately afterwards, the machine failed to boot. The machine would not boot into "Safe Mode" either. Moreover, the same thing happened
on my Win98 box, except that after a few seconds after the BIOS screen, the machine successfully booted, in spite of the display adapter also having "NA" for its IRQ. Nevertheless, it booted while XP did not. Now, when I put my original video card back in the XP box, everything works OK. Clearly, something in my XP machine in combination with the SiS 315 is preventing the system from booting. Or it could be something within my system altogether. Any help and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[PHATMAN5050]

Is the card compatible with WinXP? If your computer isnt assigning it an irq, try changing slots. Is it agp or pci? check the cmos for the settings, maybe there is something disabled in there.

 

[Nodsu]

So the machine boots, but XP won't?
In that case, in BIOS (under pnp settings) you can force giving an IRQ to VGA adapter.

Also, reinstalling XP with the SiS card installed should work

(A really useful advice that works on every occasion and which everybody is willing to give - reinstall everything )

 

[Justin]

Nodsu is right. If for some odd reason the card isn't being assigned an IRQ it's possible there is either a conflict between other cards, your PCI slots are sharing IRQs and that one is a shared slot, or the slot itself is damaged. If it is a PCI video card, try putting it into a different slot, or in your BIOS setup see if you can manually assign a certain IRQ to the slot it is in. I'm not sure if you can do this for AGP slots, but I don't see why you couldn't.


Edit - Forgot to add in, it is extremely unilkely that XP is incompatible with your video card. Windows OS' all have generic sets of functions for basic display capabilties that are almost universal, and I have yet to date, after going through several hundred video cards (I used to build machines for a living, and I still do it as my hobby), to find one that doesn't work in some fashion. I'm not saying its not possible, just highly unlikely.

 

[Th3M1ghtyD8]

Soulharvester is right, else how could you install drivers for a graphics card, if a generic driver didn't exist - you wouldn't be able to see anything!

Also, since the SiS 315 was designed after WinXP AFAIK, then SiS would have chosen to support it, overwise they would be losing a percentage of Users.

 

[Gnarly]

VidCard and WinXP (Pro)

Wow! Thanks for the responses and suggestions. 3DS is great!The card in question is an SiS 315 AGP card. I originally replaced my GF2 GTS with the 315 to help a friend of mine who was having problems witht he 315 and Red Faction. The 1st time I installed the 315, there were no issues. The machine booted, I installed the drivers and good-to-go. After some tests and evaluations, I unistalled the 315 and replaced my GF2 GTS. No problems. The XP box ran fine afterwards. The other night when I put the 315 back in the XP box, I go the no or "NA" IRQ problem. I'll try forcing an IRQ for VGA (in the BIOS) to see if that resolves the problem. Otherwise, I may have to reinstall XP (bummer!). Thanks again for the help.

 

[Justin]

Re: VidCard and WinXP (Pro)

Originally posted by Gnarly
Wow! Thanks for the responses and suggestions. 3DS is great!The card in question is an SiS 315 AGP card. I originally replaced my GF2 GTS with the 315 to help a friend of mine who was having problems witht he 315 and Red Faction. The 1st time I installed the 315, there were no issues. The machine booted, I installed the drivers and good-to-go. After some tests and evaluations, I unistalled the 315 and replaced my GF2 GTS. No problems. The XP box ran fine afterwards. The other night when I put the 315 back in the XP box, I go the no or "NA" IRQ problem. I'll try forcing an IRQ for VGA (in the BIOS) to see if that resolves the problem. Otherwise, I may have to reinstall XP (bummer!). Thanks again for the help.

What you might also try is in XP, remove the driver for the GF2 GTS, boot into safemode and ensure it is gone, then power off and replace the cards. If the problem still persists, try either booting from CD or XP boot disks and running system recovery. I doubt that would help, but both would take far less time then having to reinstall XP.

 

[Gnarly]

VidCard and XP

Thanks. I'll give that a try this weekend. I'll let you know what happens.

 

[Gnarly]

Video Card and XP Pro

After additional unsuccesful attemps at reinstalling the SiS 315 card onn my system (XP Pro), and sucessful installation on Win98SE, I have come to the conclusion that...this situation sucks! The IRQ remains "NA" when instaled on XP Pro. I do not understand why the card installs on Win98SE and not on my XP Pro box???? I thought about reformatting and reinstalling XP for 2 seconds and decided against it. It is not worth the effort and time at this point (for an SiS 315). Anyways, thanks for the suggestions. On a different note, I am thinking of replacing my GF2 with a GF4Ti 4200 in anticipation of Unreal Tournament 2003. Any suggestions...

 

[Didou]

GF4 4200 cards aren't really available yet so we can't recommend any brand so far.

On another note, try ghosting your XP install & format. Reinstall it just to see if it would fix the problem. If it doesn't, just use your ghosted file to get back to your initial position. It'll at least let you know if re-installing would fix the problem.

 

[Gnarly]

Video Card and XP Pro

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll consider that as an option. Although, I have spent way TOO much time in trying to resolve this matter. And I did discover that the Red Faction problem is not indigenous to the SiS 315 chip, but rather an openGL extension problem within the driver set. Lastly, I have seen the GF4Ti 4200, from ProLink, on PriceWatch for approx. $170.00. Not a bad deal!:grinthumb