Compatibility issues with my Radeon 1900XTX

[JUANMARQUEZ@yahoo.co]

Hi thanks for having me in the forums and this would be my first post. I am having compatibility issues with my ATI Radeon 1900XTX card with the new computer that I bought about two weeks ago. The card is the standard edition and not the crossfire edition. Basically when I insert the video card in the PCI-Express slot the computer does not detect the newly installed hardware. To make a long story short, I gave my other computer that I had for about a year or so to my cousin because she needed a computer as she was entering her third year in U.F. in graphic engineering or something similar to that title. I didn’t have a whole lot of cash on me and decided to opt for something basic for the time being. I decided to buy a Compaq Presario with the model number SR1950NX and came with the following specs, which I obtained from Best Buy:

Compaq Presario Desktop with AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 3800+
Model: SR1950NX

Processor Brand AMD Athlon(TM) 64
Processor Speed 2.4GHz

System Bus 2000MHz

Cache Memory 512KB on die Level 2
System Memory (RAM) 1GB
System Memory (RAM) Expandable To 4GB
Type of Memory (RAM) PC3200 DDR SDRAM

Hard Drive Type Serial ATA (7200 rpm)
Hard Drive Size 250GB

Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE
Video Memory Up to 256MB (shared)

Network Card Built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)
Recordable DVD Drive yes, double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW
Recordable DVD Drive Speeds 2.4x DVD+R DL; 16x4x16 DVD+RW; 8x4x16 DVD-RW; 40x24x40 CD-RW
Light Scribe Compatibility Yes
Digital Media Reader or Slots Yes, digital media card reader

Total Expansion Bays External: 1 (3.5"), 2 (5.25"); Internal: 1 (3.5")
Available Expansion Bays External: 1 (3.5"), 1 (5.25")
Total Expansion Slots 3 PCI, 1 PCI-E, 4 DIMM
Available Expansion Slots 2 PCI, 1 PCI-E, 2 DIMM

USB 2.0 Ports 7 (3 front, 4 rear)
Operating System Windows XP Media Center 2005 SP2

The computer was on sale for a limited amount of time, a week to be exact for 349.95 and found the price to be pretty good. Of course I had to do quite of bit of mail in rebates. In any case being a gamer from time to time, I was not happy with just having the “default” hardware that came with the computer and asked my best friend if he could help me upgrade some of the components. He works at a major computer store that deals with brand name computers and most of the components that you can add to upgrade a computer minus the motherboard for example and high end water cooling systems as another. In any case he was able to get me the following to upgrade my computer:

1. I upgraded the standard 300W power supply that came with the computer with a BFG 650W power supply.
2. I took out the two 512MB standard memory sticks that came with the computer and replaced them with four Kingston’s K 512MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM.
3. I disabled the onboard audio Real-Tek component and installed the Creative SB X-Fi Platinum Sound Card since I have the Logitech Z-5500 Digital surround sound system from my previous computer.
4. My friend got me the ATI Radeon 1900XTX to “supposedly” replace the onboard NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE video adapter, but this is where I am having problems.

The rest of the hardware stayed the same. I have four outlets on one of the corners of my room and two are being used with surge protectors. One has my Canon printer, Samsung flat screen monitor, my Logitech sound system, and my PS2. The other surge protector only has my computer connected to it. I guess I didn’t want to overload everything into one outlet. I tried uninstalling the NVIDIA drivers by the “add and remove programs” route as through the “device manager” route only to have the driver’s auto install itself within five seconds of rebooting or shutting down and powering up the computer again. I have correctly installed the video card on the PCI-Express slot as well as making sure in having the six pin connected to the video card from the power supply. Note that the video card’s fan does start up when the computer starts up so it seems that is working to some extent.

Expect my problem is that with everything done, the motherboard is not detecting the newly installed hardware. Connecting my monitor to the video card produces no image and therefore I need to connect it back to the motherboard to get the image on the screen. In the past four years or so I have built from scratch about a dozen or so computers for friends and family and I have never had a problem. In the cases where I upgraded the video cards, it has always been with ATI. Even if the motherboard had integrated video, they would always auto detect the new video card and allow me to install the drivers afterwards. In any case I installed everything outlined minus the video card and tested the computer for a couple of days and saw there were no issues. I later downloaded the ATI drivers and Omega drivers to later decide what I was going to use. It was when I decided to install the video card that I came to a screeching halt. By the way here is the information of my motherboard:

From PC Doctor version 5.0 for Windows log file.

*System Board*
*Header Information*
*Manufacturer*ASUS Tek Computer INC.
*Product Name*NAGAMI2
*Version*2.00
*Features*Hosting board, Board requires at least one daughter board or auxiliary card to function properly, Hot Swappable.

Searching in Google for NAGAMI2 only resulted in only half a dozen sites in English without a whole lot of information about the motherboard itself.

So here are my questions:

1. What can I do to successfully have my motherboard detect the video card?
2. Is it possible that the auto reinstalling of the NVIDIA drivers be the cause of the problem?
3. Even though I do hear the fan start up on the ATI video card can I assume that the card is working fine or can it still be defective?
4. Because the motherboard may be considered on the low end, is it possible that it was not intended to handle such a behemoth? For example on the Compaq website, it gives you two possible video cards to upgrade which are the following: the 64MB NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE and the 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7500LE. I am sure that these are not the only two video cars the motherboard will accept, but from the trend it does seem to accept the lower end cards.
5. Can the PCI-Express slot be defective to some extent?
6. Can you guys think of other possibilities and what can be the root of the problem?
7. As the last question and as a last resort should I just upgrade the motherboard to an ASUS, ABIT or DFI brand within the $80-$120 range and see which ones will ACTUALLY fit this model? I know some are very picky with the memory sticks.

Well that is pretty much all I can think of. I want to thank everyone with helping me on this problem, and I hope I didn’t go overboard with the writing even though it seems I did!

 

[trog100]

i shouldnt really say this but.. i cant be arsed to read and digest all that lot.. soo can u kinda edit it somewhat..

better still.. leave the long one there just post an abridged version.. he he

trog

 

[GLD]

Juan, are you really AlecStar?

 

[trog100]

tis a question for alec thow GLD.. perfect for one of his line by line quote type answers.. he he

just imagine the size of it.. he he

trog

 

[KennyT772]

quite simply what you did was uninstall your motherboard drivers as the onboard video core is directly controlled by the chipset. all you have to do is go into the bios and disable onboard video. i would also reccomend reinstalling windows just to rule out driver conflicts ect.

 

[Ketxxx]

have you had the x1900tested on another board to make sure its not doa? might also want to look for any option in the bios to disable onboard video or an option called something similar to "init display first" in which case it should be set to pci-e.

 

[cadaveca]

Did ya disable the onboard video, and set it to boot from PCI-E slot in bios? If the onboard is still active, and listed in bios as the primary video device, you'd have these issues.

 

[JUANMARQUEZ@yahoo.co]

Hey Guys thanks for responding to my post and for the help. By the way I would like to thank DOM_ATI_X800XL_PCI-E for the link to the HP website! Instead of calling Compaq or ATI I decided to see the HP website for some information and it helped quite a bit. Some of the Compaq models do not have an option in the BIOS to disable the onboard video card like the model I have; however I did find a work around it. I no longer had the problem of the onboard video card trying to re-install itself. These are the steps I took:

1. Downloaded Driver Cleaner
2. Rebooted the computer into safe mode.
3. I removed all the NVIDIA drivers.
4. Rebooted the computer in normal mode.
5. I went into Device Manager and noticed that the onboard video card had a yellow icon with an exclamation point on it stating that the driver was corrupt or damaged.
6. I laughed at what I read on step 5.
7. I rebooted and went back to the Device Manager and now I was able to right click on the onboard video card and click disable.
8. I turned off the computer.
9. I installed the video card as well as the six pin connector.
10. I started the computer again and pressed F1 to get into the BIOS and choose on the "Primary Video Adapter" the PCI-Express option.
11. When the boot process completed, the computer detected a new hardware when I got to the desktop.
12. I installed the drivers and the rest is history!

On a side note I installed Speed Fan and ATI Tools and noticed something horrific. The temperature on the CPU was 54 degrees Celsius while the Video card was at 56 degrees Celsius! Both were running about only 30% of the actual fan speed. In any case I increased the fan speed on Speed Fan up to 67% and lowered my temperature to 32 degrees Celsius. I did the same with ATI Tools to set the fan speed to 45% and got the temperature down to 46 degrees Celsius. Note that all temperatures before and after were on idle, meaning I was just sitting pretty on the desktop with my notepad open. Also the increase in noise was negligible on the CPU and a slight increase on the ATI video card. I guess my two part question is:

1. Why do manufactures set the default settings to motherboards and video cards to such horrible temperatures on idle? It almost seems they do it on purpose so that your computer will die sooner than expected or if you are knowledgeable then they expect you to drop more cash into superior name brand fans or other cooling systems.

2. The core on the ATI is 500 while the memory is 595 and I do not want to over clock considering the card has temperature issues and stability issues when it runs very hot. What do you consider acceptable temperature when the card is idle and on full load using just the stock fans and do you think increasing my fan speeds permanently on both the CPU and video card by "conservative amounts" drastically decrease the life of the motor and/or fan?

3. This one is optional… who is ALEC or rather ALECSTAR?

 

[cadaveca]

1. The hardware, at default speeds, will last quite some time under those operating conditions. Most manufacturer's subscribe to some sort of "Stable Image Platform" that generally has a "15-18 month error-free full-time operation". Of course, you are correct in your assumption that things will last longer, generally, when they are cooler, and there is a whole industry devoted to selling us products that offer such. OEMs need to keep everyone happy, not just the average consumer, who only amounts to 10%, or thereabouts, of the total PC market
2. Actually, those speeds are teh 2D speeds for that card. Once full-screen 3-D is started, the videocard will automatically increase the GPU voltage as well as the GPU speed and memory speed. The clocks will be 648 for the GPU, and 774 for the memory, or whatever else is set inside the CCC Overdrive panel. And honestly, i wouldn't worry about it so much. I know these parts were not cheap, but nothing lasts forever...