Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Video Card Compatibility Help

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Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 03-12-2009, 03:13 AM:

I have a pretty old Dell with an Intel 850 chipset. My video card, an NVidia 5700 went kaput. Although I'm looking at getting a new computer I don't have the resources quite yet to get it, hence I need to get a new video card (no on board video on this machine, plus I have a few games I still want to play).

The question I have is what video cards will be compatible with this system? I got a Geforce 8400 card that fits in one of my PCI slots and even shows the Dell splash screen at startup but wont' work beyond that. I have a feeling my board has a problem with the card since its DDR2. Thoughts?

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-12-2009, 03:47 AM:

The card you are mentioning, being a PCI card, should work with your computer. When you say it won't work past your "Dell splash screen", can you elaborate?

Of course, I'm guessing you removed the broken previous card first and that you tried booting windows in fail-safe mode, by tapping the F8-key several times shortly after the "splash screen" shows up and choosing the safe mode boot option.

I'm also guessing you've diagnosed the problem as being indeed the video card and not anything else that would make both video cards to seem broken, although I can't think of a problem that would display the splash screen in one card and not on the other.

I guess what I'm saying is that, perhaps, you see the splash screen and then some other problem (i.e. corrupted or defective hard drive) is preventing the computer to go much further into the boot process and therefore just leaves you with a blank screen no matter what card you put in there.

If indeed everything is fine and you are sure that it's your video card(s) that are not working, you can try any (other) PCI card (as oppossed to PCI-express) and they all should work, as should any low-end AGP card.

But in order for the boot process to continue past the splash screen with any newly fitted video card, if you are using i.e. Windows XP, you need to try booting into safe mode first long enough to install the drivers for the new card, as Windows may be trying to use the drivers for the old (removed/broken) card and freezing in the process.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 03-12-2009, 04:08 AM:

I have successfuly diagnosed the problem as the video card. In fact with the broken card I can actually load windows in safe mode (though the display is still messed up-white dots all over in the boot up screen, red vertical lines in windows). I uninstalled my old cards drivers by booting up into safe mode. The old card will work (but with the before mentioned white dots all over the screen) up to the windos load screen, then the computer freezes up on a black screen. I can also get into my bios with the old card.

I had a NVidia 5200 PCI card laying around and I actually got that to work. The 8400 will still not work. The 8400 is a PCI card and not PCI express. The only thing I can see that makes it 'different' from the 5200 (besides the obvious) is the 512mb of video memory on the 8400 is DDR2. I have no idea is that would cause a conflict with my board but I'm guessing thats the issue since I'm pretty sure my board is too old to support DDR2.

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-12-2009, 05:50 AM:

The problem with the old card (i.e. white dots all over) looks indeed like it could easily be a defective card as you diagnosed.

Now, on the second replacement PCI card, whatever type of memory it uses doesn't affect (directly) its compatibility with the motherboard, as they write data in the common writing mode to all PCI devices over the PCI bus. Actually, traditionally, video cards have always used "exotic" memory like GRAM or VRAM, etc, addressed over 64 or 128 bits busses, while the PCI bus is limited to 32 (or 64 bits in PCI-64 slots), i.e.

One thing that might affect compatibility is how fast you are running the PCI bus, as some cards only allowed say up to 33Mhz while others up to 66Mhz (i.e PCI 2.2). There would be settings in the BIOS setup screen for this (such as PCI bus multiplier, etc). You may want to look into that.

So when you try the 8400 it shows the splash screen, you can get into the BIOS setup etc, but once you try to start to boot in safe mode ... the computer just freezes before windows displays anything at all. Is that right?

In that case, I have no idea why it's happening. [Confused]

And out of curiosity, is there a specific reason for using so many PCI video cards? Most video cards of the time where AGP cards. If they were AGP cards I would also recommend un-installing any potential (smart)GART drivers that windows may have loaded.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 03-12-2009, 05:54 AM:

You can't really find AGP cards in stores these days. Even basic PCI are becoming rare, the newer cards are all PCI Express, etc.

And no, on the 8400 I see the splash screen but can't even get into BIOS. I hit F2 when I see the splash screen, I see a message saying 'entering setup', and then nothing, just black screen, no hard drive activity or anything. It won't boot into safe mode either, I was only able to do that with the defective card and now the even older PCI card I am using (Geforce 5200).

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-12-2009, 08:11 AM:

quote: Dustin Mitchell
I see the splash screen but can't even get into BIOS. I hit F2 when I see the splash screen, I see a message saying 'entering setup', and then nothing, just black screen

I don't think that's something I could diagnose. Not from here, anyway [Wink]

Well, at least you are up and running with the older card. If you can't see any settings in the BIOS that may explain the problem (i.e. use BIOS default values, check all PCI settings to safe values), you may try updating your motherboard BIOS to see if there was something "broken" that prevented that newer video card from working enough to even enter the BIOS setup.

If the BIOS has settings for the voltage in the PCI bus, you may try raising them a bit or lowering them. Your card is probably universal 3.3 and 5v, so try playing a bit with both power rails if the BIOS allows.

It would also be good to be able to test the 8400 in another computer to make sure it's working fine, just in case. And if there are any other PCI cards in your system, you could try removing them temporarily to rule them out as causing the compatibility problem.

Other than that, I'm out of suggestions [Frown]

AFAIK, a 8400 PCI should work on a 850 motherboard.

Best of luck.

Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 03-12-2009, 09:57 AM:

Dustin I believe the geforce 8400 is a pcie card. If you are looking for something to work with your system as I believe it does not have a pcie slot check ebay for either pci or agp cards

Posted by Robert Minichino (Member # 3495) on 03-12-2009, 10:21 AM:

The type of memory on the video card doesn't matter to your motherboard. The video card has its own memory controller that handles support for that memory, and the motherboard only ever accesses it through the PCI/AGP/PCIe busses which act in a standard way no matter what type of memory is on your card or your motherboard supports.

The 8400 might be defective or there might be a problem in your BIOS with accessing such a large video memory area.