I drive myself mad with PC issues

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HydroSqueegee

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Nov 15, 2004
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Im putting together a small media PC to hook up to the ol tv via S-Video (and later DVI when i get my new LCD tv) for movies and emulaters. The case is the coolermaster one that fits full size ATX boards, but requires a riser (which coolermaster makes specifically for that case).
Had everything working fine, but the old GF2MX i was using is a bit flakey (tends to die at random times) and it doesnt have DVI for future upgrades anyhoo... so i order a 9600.
So i finally get my shiney new Radeon 9600 from newegg, pop it in... no video signal. OK... hook it up to the ol monitor with the vga cable... no signal. take it out, swap back in the GF2... gets a picture just fine with vga. Hook that back up to the TV... no picture over s-video. :mad:

What the hell? i refuse to believe i got a DOA card (mainly because i dont want to pay shipping to send it back and I still need to try the 9600 in a PC without the a riser), and the s-video seems to have magically stopped working.

advice on what to do next? the S-video not working is really pissing me off the most.

one thing i didnt think of was to check the cable for a bent pin, but that didnt occur to me at 11:30 last night.
 
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You of course made sure to seat the card FIRMLY. None of the contacts are corroded... Dont know if the 9600 has any LEDs on it so...

I'm thinking DOA. Mail it back from wherever you work. It's the risk you take by having things shipped post instead of frieght :p
 
FlamingGlory said:
You of course made sure to seat the card FIRMLY. None of the contacts are corroded... Dont know if the 9600 has any LEDs on it so...

I'm thinking DOA. Mail it back from wherever you work. It's the risk you take by having things shipped post instead of frieght :p
Click to expand...

in nice and firm, all contacts are new... so. yea.

but what about my s-video problem? it just magically stopped working... even with the card that works.
 
HydroSqueegee said:
in nice and firm, all contacts are new... so. yea.

but what about my s-video problem? it just magically stopped working... even with the card that works.
Click to expand...

Is why I was thinking contacts. Presumably both cards use the same socket point for S-Video, so if there was a piece of dirt or something it could keep it from functioning.

Have you tried putting it in another computer?
 
Valve1138 said:
Why on earth would you need to do this?
Click to expand...

If you have the BIOS set to quick boot, it won't bother to look to see if anything has changed in any slot. This may lead to incompatibility. Clearing the CMOS forces the BIOS to query everything and reinitialize based on those results. I'd say turn off quick boot, but if you can't see the BIOS setup screen to turn it off...
 
FlamingGlory said:
Is why I was thinking contacts. Presumably both cards use the same socket point for S-Video, so if there was a piece of dirt or something it could keep it from functioning.

Have you tried putting it in another computer?
Click to expand...

thats the next step. at 11:30 last night i gave up and went to bed. I didnt want to strip down my main PC, but i guess thats the next stop on my trip down hardware lane.

the s video pins are infact different on both cards. the GF2 uses the 4 pin layout, and the 9600 uses the 7 pin layout (but it did come with a 4pin svideo to coposite cable) So it works just fine with a regular ol cable... if it actully worked that is.
but now the svideo doesnt work at all with either card, so now i need to figure out what the hell went wrong with that.
 
HydroSqueegee said:
thats the next step. at 11:30 last night i gave up and went to bed. I didnt want to strip down my main PC, but i guess thats the next stop on my trip down hardware lane.

the s video pins are infact different on both cards. the GF2 uses the 4 pin layout, and the 9600 uses the 7 pin layout (but it did come with a 4pin svideo to coposite cable) So it works just fine with a regular ol cable... if it actully worked that is.
but now the svideo doesnt work at all with either card, so now i need to figure out what the hell went wrong with that.
Click to expand...
You took the card out and Windows defaulted back to single monitor configuration? I'm guessing with the GF2, you'll just need to boot up and turn it on in the display settings.
 
theacoustician said:
You took the card out and Windows defaulted back to single monitor configuration? I'm guessing with the GF2, you'll just need to boot up and turn it on in the display settings.
Click to expand...

heres my series of events:

when i first installed the GF2, i hooked it up to my TV with the svideo connector so i could install windows. It worked no problem. Got windows installed and shortly thereafter, the video card started to flake out.

9600 arrives. take out GF2, install the 9600, hook it up to tv... no picture. reboot a few times, same thing.

reinstall the GF2 and hook it up to my monitor via the vga cable. It gets a picture. unhook it from the monitor, hook it up to the tv with svideo, no picture.

put the 9600 back in, hook it up to the monitor with vga... no picture. It seems like it gets something. the monitor displaye the red,blue,green picture that rolls around the screen when nothing is hooked up, but the second you plug in the 9600, it goes away and the monitor is just black with the power light on it looking like its in standby mode.

so i took it out for the last time and reinstalled the GF2. hooked it to the monitor, it works, hooked it to s-video, nothing. :wtf:
 
theacoustician said:
You took the card out and Windows defaulted back to single monitor configuration? I'm guessing with the GF2, you'll just need to boot up and turn it on in the display settings.
Click to expand...

i'll give that a go. odd though since it worked no problem and displayed everyting on the TV from the post screen onwards before hand.
 
theacoustician said:
If you have the BIOS set to quick boot, it won't bother to look to see if anything has changed in any slot. This may lead to incompatibility. Clearing the CMOS forces the BIOS to query everything and reinitialize based on those results. I'd say turn off quick boot, but if you can't see the BIOS setup screen to turn it off...
Click to expand...

Rather than losing all your settings just set the BIOS to force detect new hardware. No need to clear the whole thing.

But this is only if you are having a problem to begin with.
 
Valve1138 said:
Rather than losing all your settings just set the BIOS to force detect new hardware. No need to clear the whole thing.

But this is only if you are having a problem to begin with.
Click to expand...

True, but this is assuming there is that setting. Clearing the CMOS is a more universal answer. I'm also assuming that anyone willing to play with the innards of their computer has no issue with redoing the settings in the BIOS. I kinda like it, but then again, maybe I'm assuming too much here.
 
theacoustician said:
True, but this is assuming there is that setting. Clearing the CMOS is a more universal answer. I'm also assuming that anyone willing to play with the innards of their computer has no issue with redoing the settings in the BIOS. I kinda like it, but then again, maybe I'm assuming too much here.
Click to expand...

doesnt matter to me. i'll just have to declock the proc again. no biggie.
 
And I don't mean to rain on your parade, but you may just want to return the card and stick with the GF2 until you upgrade to your new LCD. That 9600 isn't going to allow you to watch most HD content. About the only thing I'm guessing you'll be able to watch that's HD is MPEG2 TS captures. That's most OTA TV captures. Anything encoded VC-1, H264, or DivX/Xvid, especially 1080p content, and your machine will choke like Mama Cass on a sandwich. For a rough idea of what you machine would have to look like in order to handle all HD scenarios, check out Cyberlink's requirements for their HD player : http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/system_requirement.jsp

Stick with what you have for an SD HTPC scenario and put the money back into the bank till you're ready to upgrade.
 
theacoustician said:
And I don't mean to rain on your parade, but you may just want to return the card and stick with the GF2 until you upgrade to your new LCD. That 9600 isn't going to allow you to watch most HD content. About the only thing I'm guessing you'll be able to watch that's HD is MPEG2 TS captures. That's most OTA TV captures. Anything encoded VC-1, H264, or DivX/Xvid, especially 1080p content, and your machine will choke like Mama Cass on a sandwich. For a rough idea of what you machine would have to look like in order to handle all HD scenarios, check out Cyberlink's requirements for their HD player : http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/system_requirement.jsp

Stick with what you have for an SD HTPC scenario and put the money back into the bank till you're ready to upgrade.
Click to expand...

well crap. i dont have the cash to upgrade to a system that beefy, and if i did, it would be my main rig. I'll just stick with DVD's and emulation (which is all i really planned it for. Sad about the high end rips though.

The best fanless card i could find in agp was the 7600GS, and that looks to be just a little bit underpowered hi def. (not to mention out of my price range)

I'll have to find a replacement for the GF2 though since it is dying slowly.

anyone want to donate something to me?
 
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