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Multi-monitor melancholic madness in XP

I

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Hey all,

OK, so, here's the problem. I have a 17" Sun monitor (aha) sitting around doing jack, so I thought I'd get hold of a PCI graphics card so I can use my ADI 17" and the Sun at the same time, Windows XP Pro multi-monitor loveliness.
Got hold of a 2nd-hand S3 ViRGE 4Mb PCI card this evening, plugged it in on its own, works fine (just about). Plugged it in as the same time as my AGP TNT2 and we have the annoying-as-hell yellow (!) icon appear next to it in Device Manager. XP lists it as an S3 ViRGE DX/GX which is correct, but simply won't allow it to start (Code 10 error message when I try that, "device cannot start").
This is driving me bonkers as I really wanted dual displays this evening and it's been denied (cue Q3 noise: "DENIED!") me, has anyone got any ideas why both cards don't like co-existing? Please help me before I prematurely lose my hair!

My rig's below:

QDI 7B AMD mobo
Duron 700 (stock speed)
256Mb PC100 (2x 128Mb sticks)
30Gb IBM 75GXP
22Gb IBM 75GXP (I think it's a 75)
nVIDIA TNT2 standard in AGP slot
Creative PCI128 sound card in PCI #1
Diamond SupraExpress 56k PCI modem in PCI #2
Hauppauge Win/TV PCI in PCI #4
D-Link DE-528 10/100 NIC in PCI #5
ADI 5G 17" monitor + Sun 17" monitor
Logitech cordless kb yada yada yada

Oh and I've tried removing all other PCI devices, fiddling with the "Initialise device first..." settings in the BIOS, driver updates (can't find any), everything I know.

Someone please throw me a line here and show me what I'm doing wrong (and if you say that the S3 card is too old/incompatible I'm gonna scream)!

Cheers,

Dopefiend
 
> (and if you say that the S3 card is too old/incompatible I'm gonna scream)!

It probably is. Did you check the hardware compatibility list for the S3 chipset? The card needs to support a couple of features (most newer cards do). I've had the exact same problems as you describe with older cards (sorry!)
 
Well the card works in XP fine, but isn't in the Windows Catalog. What features does the card need to support?
Don't really fancy splashing out on a GF2MX/Twinview card really....

Cheers,
Dopefiend
 
> Well the card works in XP fine, but isn't in the Windows Catalog

The requirements for a primary card and secondary card are different. I believe the secondary's have to be able to run with their bios disabled, and not all cards support that. If you look in the fs/t forum you should be able to pick up a cheap TNT2 PCI as a secondary, they work very well.

Bill
 
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