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New Video Card Won't Run with Digital Cable

C

Carbo

Diamond Member
Decided to upgrade my video card. I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with an integrated card. Upgraded to a SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 256M 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X. Plugged into the AGP slot, swapped out the blue analog cable for the white digital cable, booted up, and the monitor never got past some testing message. Something about an analog signal test. A multi colored square continued to float across the monitor.
Shut everything down, and went back to the blue analog cable. Booted up and all went normally. The PC recognizes the card in device manager. But why can't I run it in digital mode? Thank you.
 
Does your monitor have to be manually switched between analog and digital?
Click to expand...
Speed, I don't know for certain, but I don't see any thing like that. It's a Dell 1901FP.
You may need to turn on the digital port on your card.
Click to expand...
How would I do that?
 
I think I've made some progress. I figured out how to switch between analog and digital modes. The problem now is when I am in digital mode, the screen displays a message that says "Digital Mode is in power saver. Press any key on keyboard or move mouse". When I do either, nothing happens and that message remains.
 
Heh, I went to the Sapphire tech forums to see if I could come up with anything to help you out but see you've already been there..🙂 I was thinking though, when in analog mode in display properties, does it show dual displays? Can you leave both analog and digital cables hooked up at the same time? If you can and it does show up as dual displays, can you set the second display to be the primary one instead of the first one? If this doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try to clarify what I mean..

Speed
 
Have you gone into the BIOS and turned off (or made secondary) the integrated video?

If not, it probably thinks (XP) that your DVI connection is a 2nd monitor that you want to use to extend the desktop and by default this option is turned of in the display properties. Thus the reason for no video.
 
Went into the BIOS and the only thing I could find that seemed like it might be related to this issue was called Integrated Devices>Primary Video Controller. The choices were Auto, or AGP. It defaults to auto. I tried both, but neither made a difference. Still no screen in digital mode. :|
 
try this...hook up both monitors and turn the computer on. Your old monitor (hooked to the integrated video) should boot and you should see the normal windows log on. If so, continue on.

Go to your display properties (right click on the desktop)
Go to the settings tab.
You should see two squares with the number 1 and 2 in them. Right click on number 2 and "check" primary.
Click apply.

The change should now move your desktop to your new DVI monitor. Unhook the old monitor and enjoy.

You can now install your new video drivers, etc.

(these are the exact steps I had to follow when I added a PCI DVI Card to my Dell Optiplex GX110 with integrated video)
 
Speed, yes, it does show two monitors in display properties. I can hook up both the analog and digital cables simultaneously, but will this possibly damage the monitor or card?
Siliconhills, I don't have two monitors.
 
I don't see how it could harm anything since it will run 2 seperate monitors at once. The only difference is that instead of 2 monitors, you're switching between modes of one monitor. Once you switch the monitor mode, it'll only accept the signal for the selected mode.

Speed
 
Speed, Siliconhills, tried your suggestions. My one monitor has both analog and digital cables connected to the video card simultaneously. Tried switching between modes and always the same result: the monitor goes into sleep mode in digital mode. Go back to analog and it springs back to life.
I tried to force the secondary monitor in Device Manager to be the primary, but that didn't work, either. It would always default to monitor 1. I'm stumped and frustrated. :|
I've done some digging around Dell's forums, and I have come to learn that this is a known issue for many Dell customers. Here's one example. Here's another. And the biggest and best of all is here! I was certain it was not a hardware issue, as my monitor has been working perfectly fine in analog mode. Oh, well, let me contact the boys in Calcutta and score me a new monitor and see if the fix is in.
 
That sucks.. I've been reading up on Dell's site, I can't believe there are that many people with the same problem still... Good luck with the new monitor, hopefully that will fix the problem.

Speed
 
Actually, I'm most surprised that I didn't know about it already. I usually keep my ear to the wind about these things. And I'm surprised that this hasn't been covered in AT previously. Oh, well. Live and learn, I suppose. Thanks for your help.
 
To conclude this sad story, the replacement monitor arrived this morning, (fast work, Dell!). Installed it and immediately went into digital mode, as it should. So, I guess the problem was, in fact, a bug in the monitor.
 
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