Simviation Forums

I just got an ATI Radeon 9600XT, stepping up from an nVidia FX5500, but when I tried to install it, I just get a blank screen with an orange standby light.  It's an AGP 8x card going into an AGP 4x slot, but as I understand it, that isn't a compatibility issue.  I know the card is at least getting power, as the fan is spinning, but nothing is coming up on screen, not even the initial bios info.  Additionally, the hard drive light comes on and stays on while the computer tries to boot.

ATI says to update the motherboard's display drivers, which I have, to no avail.  Any ideas on where to go from here?

Megaspeed Radeon 9600XT 256Mb RAM
Gigabyte GA-7VKML motherboard
Athlon XP 2200+
1 gig RAM

Sushi have you definately installed the drivers? If so do you have a password on your machine to login? If you've got the blank screen then enter the password and press return. The normal screen should come up then.
This isn't a definate fix, but I had a similar thing with my Ti4600 a while back and that worked...

Ozzy

First off Sushi - Welcome! May your stay here be a long and happy one.  ;)

I'm not too sure about your problem, but as Mark said your best bet is to make perfectly sure that you have got all of the latest drivers, not only for the card itself but for the chipset as well.

On my card not only does it plug into the AGP (8X) socket it takes a 4 pin molex power connector directly onto the card. If yours does then it could be that it hasnt got enough power from the socket itself. I very much doubt it, but if your PSU was on the edge before the card may have pushed it over as well? I shouldn't think there would be a problem above about 200 Watts.
Dan

You silly's

Well rember Congo he was not using onboard. I dont think its drivers anyways because no driver is loaded at initial start up. They are all designed to at least run with the generc driver in there so people with new systems can install windows etc. I recomend you try the card on a different machine, this will verify if it is a dead card or problematic PC. If it dosent work in other machine its dead, dumpster material, if it does then its something with your machine, like your PSU as suggested. I do not think it has anything to do with drivers because you would at least see BIOS screen without.

Even without drivers, the PC will boot and display an image using default MS drivers. It's can only be a hardware problem. Either the card is not seated properly in the AGP slot, or the card is defective and needs to be exchanged (it does happen with new hardware from time to time).

Thanks for all the suggestions people, but it looks like a dead card after all.  Good thing its covered by a local warranty.  :)

I definitely agree with you congo, a 9800 pro is a far better card with it's 8 pixel pipelines of goodness, but I'm on a budget and I scored the 9600xt for a song plus shipping costs and don't ask for much.  Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Sushi has an onboard graphics mainboard.

That means there are two blue video out ports, one for the onboard and one on the new video card. Many people leave the video cable on the onboard port believe it or not....

If the cable is moved to the video card, they then think the card is dead. This is because the BIOS is set for onboard VGA and it won't display the addon video card's image, rather, it displays no image at all, so BIOS cannot be set because there is no screen image.

CMOS must contain the basic video driver, or we would never see an image on first boot or until an op sys is loaded. Anyone verify this?

Weatherman had a  good point as well, AGP slots have notoriously fine connectors, with only microns between the contacts. Foriegn matter in the slot or on the card's contacts can wreak havoc, and proper seating of the card is sometimes a bit dodgy due to the fine tolerances of the AGP connector. This might explain the hard drive light on continuously as the system tries to figure out whats going on with the AGP slot.

Without downloading Sushi's manual, I'm not sure if the VGA device is selected by BIOS or Jumper cap on the mainboard, so unless you tell us what you did, Sushi, we can't possibly know if all avenues have been exausted. These PC's are tricky little buggers  ;)

most motherboards that i unpacked had remains of packaging material hanging in the AGP slot, especially when you have just removed the foam blocks that protect the casing. scraps from these tend to hang around in the card slots

Tried a beefier PSU, cleaned the contacts and ensured the slot is clear (although it should be as it works with other cards)  Next I'll try it on a friend's system.  If there's still no dice, its going back to the factory.  Thanks for all the help!  ;D

Yeah, congo I hate too belive ppl dont know to switch over the cable.  I think if you only made partil contact we would have videocard/system wide fryage but ppl get lucky.