Problems with multiple gfx cards in system

[Cybergooch]

Having some problems with multiple graphics cards in a system. Before you ask "why the hell do you have multiple cards in your system?", the answer is because I use 3 monitors. Excessive, yes, but it's the way I like to work. I use a standard AGP card with dual outs for the center and right monitors, and a generic PCI card to control the left monitor. I use this setup at work and at home and have had no problems, until now.

A few days ago, my old AGP card (Gainward nVidia FX5900) bit the dust. Started drawing vertical lines through everything while booting up, then once in windows, things would start glitching and freezing, then lockup. The PCI card ( a PNY GeForce MX 4000) was fine. I picked up a PNY nVidia 6200 last night to replace the Gainward, and although it worked fine by itself, it would not work if the PCI card was also installed.

I returned it for an nVidia 6600 this morning, and finally a Leadtek 6800GT tonight. No go. In all cases, I get the same result... if the PCI card is installed, the AGP card has a warning in Device Manager:

"This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use (Code 12)

If you want to use this device you will need to disable one of the other devices on this system."

I uninstalled every other peripheral in my system as a test, but it's got to be a conflict between the cards. The PCI card is fine by itself, and the AGP card is fine by itself, but they won't work together, despite the fact that this same system had both working together previously. I have tried setting IRQ's manually, tried different PCI slots, and everything else I could think of. My BIOS is set to recognize the AGP slot before the PCI slot. If I disable the PCI card in Device Manager, the AGP card works, but only in 4 bit depth! Even then the AGP card complains about not having enough resources.

Any ideas what's going on here?

More info:

MB: ABIT IC7-G
2.6 GHz P4
2 gigs RAM
Win XP Pro SP2

Any help appreciated!

-Eric Gooch
www.cybergooch.com

 

[blckgrffn]

Great question, I hope that somebody has a good answer...

Nat

 

[Cybergooch]

Just wanted to post an update that I've solved the problem, and how. After trying numerous card combinations and having the same results, I figured it couldn't be the video cards themselves.

I pulled all components and went into the bios and disabled EVERYTHING. 2nd IDE channel, FDD, Firewire, USB controller, and left nothing active but the boot drive, the mouse, the keyboard, and both graphics cards. After rebooting, success! Both cards were working. I slowly enabled items in the BIOS, and added the peripherals back in.

As it stands now, I am back in business except for firewire. Everything else has been enabled without conflicts. I am going to leave it at this for now, as the only thing I used firewire for was my external backup drive, and it's got USB 2.0 as well, so I'll use that instead. I also had to leave out my old sound card, but I've enabled the onboard audio instead...nothing fancy, but it works!