Have a challenge for you... PCI Graphics adapter/XP Problem

[EverettP]

Heres the problem... I just built my own computer:

ASROCK K78SX Mobo (Updpated BIOS from 1.2 to 1.4)
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Proccessor
LG CD ROM 52X (On Second IDE Port as Master)
Western Digital 40 Gig 7200 RPM HD (On First IDE Port as Master/Primary)
Sony 3.5 Floppy, Windows XP Pro SP1a


The mobo does not have integrated graphics so I used one of the available PCI slot for my ATI Radeon 7500 64 MB PCI Graphics Card (I don't have an AGP card at the moment). XP runs fine, color depth is just peachy, but its just using a Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (Still thinks its using Radeon tho). I want to install the drivers to get rid of the rendering lag in IE and be able to play games. Whenever i install the latest (yes latest straight from the manufacturer for XP) and reboot, Windows will freeze within a minute of using it. Now i even tried another crappier graphics card I have and it did the same thing. SiSandra said my PCI latency was too high but its set at 32 (lowest it can go in BIOS). Does anyone have any ideas or a way i can figure this out? Also, it won't freeze if i don't use the mouse, Once i use the mouse and start to do stuff it freezes

Ways I tried to fix it....
Switch PCI Ports, reinstall about 30 times, did it in safe mode out of safe mode, in vga mode, change PCI latency, Updated ALL drivers on the motherboard (even nonspecific ones)... Im stuck.

Am I SOL until I get my AGP?

 

[Matt84]

have u selected PCI as the primary vGA device in the bios. This can help

 

[EverettP]

yep, even tried AGP for the hell of it.

 

[EverettP]

Bump

 

[Mingon]

Check you PCI slots and which irq's are shared with each other

 

[EverettP]

:-\, thats something I don't know how to do

 

[boyz]

some problems are best left alone, get a agp card, trust me you'll be glad

 

[capricorn]

Originally posted by: EverettP
:-\, thats something I don't know how to do

One place to look is in the manual for your motherboard. Most will have a table the lists the PCI slot number and a list of IRQs each uses. The AGP slot (if you have one) and one of the other PCI slots will share IRQ 10 or 11 for example. PCI slots 2 and 5 might share IRQ 9. You'll also find out that things like your USB chip is sharing an IRQ with some PCI slot.

A second place to look is during boot time, most BIOS display a list of IRQs and what cards are using them. This is only displayed for a second, so hit the Pause key on your keyboard to freeze it. (Any other key to continue on). Descriptions there can be cryptic. For example, something like Mutifunction Audio Device is your sound card.

Also, you can look in the device manager in XP and check to see what IRQ each device is using.

The best of all worlds is every device has it's own IRQ. That's not always possible if you have more devices than IRQs to assign. One trick I use there is to go into the BIOS and disable devices I am not using like the multimedia card reader, serial ports I am not using (which seems to be all of them any more), and parallel port (I have a USB printer). Other rules of thumb that I use is that I generally try to avoid having my network card and graphics adapter on the same IRQ. I prefer USB (where my keyboard and mouse are running) on its own IRQ if possible. I have cases where I didn't follow these rules and everything's fine though, so it varies by motherboard and devices stuck into the PCI slots. Sometimes simply reversing the location of two cards or moving them around is all it takes. I've seen situations where cards in slots 2, 4 and 5 didn't work but 1, 2, and 5 did. Or 1, 3, and 5. Or switching the cards in 1 and 3 fix the problem. That doesn't seem to happen as often as it once did, but it does still happen.

-cap

 

[Ketchup]

Which slot do you have the card in now? I think generally, it would be best to have the card in the top slot next to the AGP, since they share IRQ's. I remember on one system I built around an ECS K7S5A, I had a problem with XP crashing when I tried to use it with an old PCI card, but the problems went away when I bought an AGP card.