New Problem - Display all messed up

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:49 pm

Gotta love Dell....

Talking to one of their "tech support" people, they said there is "nothin wrong" with my system.

I asked them the question, 'Would anything explain why the screen would be perfect with the old card (prior to me frying it!), and then going to a new card would screw it all up?'

He said he had no clue.

BigJ, FYI. I went into the BIOS (F2) and that screen was picture perfect too. The tech guy had me check that as well. He told me that he didnt believe it was the driver because the driver doesnt "kick in" until after these screens.

Does that make sense??
Like I said, everything else is great, it is just that it is annoying to see that screen pop up & now be all messed up. Says there is nothing that they could do to help...

LT

[JiF][AARP]Tissueman · Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:19 pm

Aren't there any 15 year olds in the neighborhood? You could save yourself a lot of trouble by hiring one of them to trouble shoot all your problems.

I usually wait for my son or son-in-law to visit.

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:21 pm

[JiF][AARP]Tissueman wrote:Aren't there any 15 year olds in the neighborhood? You could save yourself a lot of trouble by hiring one of them to trouble shoot all your problems. I usually wait for my son or son-in-law to visit.

Nah, all just AARP members around here....

LT

[JiF]bigjohnson · Post by **[JiF]bigjohnson** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:36 pm

Dimension motherboards vary but usually on "bulk" intel boards, etc they use, one thing is common: the AGP slot and the next PCI slot share the interrupt which sucks because the video card will try and suck up all the bandwidth and voltage going to those slots unless it cant which cause instability in the power and communication waveform... ie: weird stuff happens. The voltage drop can be more damaging to a video card than a spike actually since thing try and compensate to work harder thus generating more heat and the fan can not keep up so you bake southbridges or secondary processors which control memory allocation and bus. Now windows trys to override this interrupt/resource by actually managing the use and paths which is actually good but does not see or compenate for voltage drops across the board.

So since I've bored you with an explanation most geeks would call flamebait (which would be like stating opinions about politics or religion as facts)
long story short... AGP over PCI always for resource allocation. set aperature to max 256M not auto. check for a bios revision. roll back drivers. besides that, use the ol' if it aint broke, don't F wit it!

[JiF]KellysHero · Post by **[JiF]KellysHero** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 11:49 pm

You should check out dell's forums and search using 8300 and x1300.

Here's one interesting thread...

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportfor ... 39#M148506

That's the search thread.
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportfor ... 8300+x1300

The first thread I linked to was rather interesting, are you sure you have an actual PCI express slot in the system? What was the exact card you purchased, did it say on the box APG or PCI?

Why would you be installing a pci-e x1 or x16 video card in an 8300 that has a agp slot for a video card?

The x1300 is not available in pci form.

Your system specs are here:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /specs.htm

What video card are you using now?

Good Luck

Dale

[JiF]KellysHero · Post by **[JiF]KellysHero** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 11:57 pm

Just checked, the video card you bought was a PCI Express x16 card, your system doesn't have PCI Express, it has regular PCI slots. (According to the link in my previous post from the Dale Dude).

You need to buy an APG video card, not a PCI-Express card. Not sure how your system even started with a PCI Express card in a PCI slot.

Return your card, and get one of these two...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productco ... 6814143046

It doesn't have to be the BFG version, but a 7600GS or 7800GS will be a cut above what you have now. (which isn't hard since your system isn't working).

PS You are paying a bit more since the industry moved away from APG to PCI-EXPRESS (not to be confused with plain ole PCI). I got the 7600GT for PCI-

[JiF]LtWaterboy · Post by **[JiF]LtWaterboy** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 2:47 am

[JiF]KellysHero wrote:Just checked, the video card you bought was a PCI Express x16 card, your system doesn't have PCI Express, it has regular PCI slots. (According to the link in my previous post from the Dale Dude).

You need to buy an APG video card, not a PCI-Express card. Not sure how your system even started with a PCI Express card in a PCI slot.

Return your card, and get one of these two...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productco ... 6814143046

It doesn't have to be the BFG version, but a 7600GS or 7800GS will be a cut above what you have now. (which isn't hard since your system isn't working).

PS You are paying a bit more since the industry moved away from APG to PCI-EXPRESS (not to be confused with plain ole PCI). I got the 7600GT for PCI-

No, you checked out wrong..... it is an AGP 8x - says so right on the box. Plus it was the recommended one by Dell . They checked out my service tag in their records and pulled up a list of compatible ones.

Like I said - it is working in every other way...just that darn start up screen with the Dell Logo on it and the "Powered by Intel" in the corner.

I'm not sure what BigJ means on how to do those first two things (ie set aperature & check for bios revision). right now, i'm taking his last piece of advice - if all else is working properly - don't F* with it!!

LT