Odd computer problem..

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2005-03-29 06:53pm

Ok, just obtained a new vid card, (128MB ATI Radeon 9250, I got it for $40 on sale), and had some slight problems with the install. Said problems being that the comp would not boot beyond LILO without a error.

At first I thought it was a bad RAM chip, cause it booted fine after I removed the stick, but out of couriosity, I put the stick back in, and it still booted up fine, except now my second IDE Channel is gone, my spare hdd and cd burner is not detected by windows or linux, and the names are now garbled on the POST screen.

Anyone have a idea of wtf happened, and/or how to fix it?

I'm halfway tempted to think it the Ribbon Cable went bad...but why would it happen after I installed the new vid card?

Any idea would be appreciated..

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-03-29 06:58pm

how old is your system? is your bios up to date? are all the drivers properly installed? which OS are you using? if you're dual booting operating systems, that might cause resource conflicts. since alot of graphics cards aren't linux friendly.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-03-29 07:10pm

Try putting the old card back in and see what happens.

If it's still screwing up, run Memtest on it. If it gives errors, try running it with one stick in, then the other stick in to see if you can localize the error.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2005-03-29 07:19pm

Darth_Zod wrote:how old is your system? is your bios up to date? are all the drivers properly installed? which OS are you using? if you're dual booting operating systems, that might cause resource conflicts. since alot of graphics cards aren't linux friendly.

System is about....5 years old now, 600 mghtz Duron, all drivers are properly installed, with the most current version, I'm dual booting (mandrake 10.1 and winXP home) I can get it to boot, and it likes linux, so that's not the problem.

the IDE channel isn't being picked up in either linux or windows...and the CDRW and the secondary hdd come up garbled on the POST screen. I'm going to be downloading the latest BIOS in a bit, but I beleive I did that within the last year.

Uranium235 wrote:Try putting the old card back in and see what happens.

If it's still screwing up, run Memtest on it. If it gives errors, try running it with one stick in, then the other stick in to see if you can localize the error.

Already put the old card back in, and the IDE channel was still missing from the OS's and garbled still on the POST Screen, I'll give Memtest a try.

Miles Teg · Post by **Miles Teg** » 2005-03-29 07:32pm

You quite possibly have a crappy power supply that can't supply enough amps on the 12V rail. Most new processors and Vid Cards suck amps from the 12V rail, which in older machines does not provide enough amps (older processors and vid cards sucked from the 5v rail).

Power brownouts are hard on your BIOS settings (can cause them to garble). Pull out that video card, put in the old one, reset your bios, and try it.

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2005-03-31 09:49am

Update:
I managed to fix the problem, had to reflash my BIOS (there was a new update which came up after my last one), and also rechecked my ribbon cable's connections.

So it's detecting both my burner and my spare hdd.

Thanks to for the help all.