new soundcard prevents booting mystery? Help me please!

[Deen]

I just bought a used Diamond MX 400. When I tried to install
it on an empty PCI slot it prevents my computer from booting.
What I get is that "your monitor is working" message from
a monitor that can't show any picture, like there is no input or something. I don't know if the card itself is dead, or if there
is a Bios setting I have to change. IRQ's maybe. But I don't
know anything about such things. When I take out the card
and enable my onboard audio everything is back to normal.

Please, calling all computer experts, show me a lead or something. So I can know where to start trouble shooting. I'm living in desperate times!

THANKS.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

If the you don't get ANYTHING on the screen ever with the new card, then either the card itself is fried or the slot is broken. Well, I guess I should first say that you should make sure you're properly seating the card.

Do you hear any POST beeps?

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Deen]

Hello there Slack,

I think there is a post beep, then the "your monitor is working"
message dissappears and reappears. The beep sound again and
keeps on repeating. It's almost like the card is stopping my AGP
from functioning.

There's a great chance of static dammage on the card itself,
because they were sold on boxes filled with assorted cards
that anyone could just touch and crush em' like crackers.
But the bargain was too much for me to ressist!

But I doubt the slot is broken because it's a new Mobo
and I tried it on another slot and it's the same. I do have
an internal modem on the 5th slot.

I can take it if the card is fried, but if it's not I'm just going crazy
trying to figure out how to make it work.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Well, it's possible that I'm wrong, but I'd probably diagnose your card as being fried. I've seen this exact same behavior many times in the past and it's usually been due to a card unseating or, in rare cases, being broken. Usually, though, you will get some sort of POST code to beep at you or no beeps at all...a single short beep is usually reserved for a successful POST, and that's the only thing making me a little unsure.

A resource conflict isn't really going to cause this kind of behavior at the BIOS level. You should at least get the initial BIOS screens to come up.

You're not overclocking are you?

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Deen]

Hi Slack,

I'm not overclocking. What do you mean by unseating. Does this
mean the card is not inserted perfectly in the slot. Not aligned maybe. Or damaged or scratched on those tiny contactpoints
where card meets slot.

It's also interesting because when I pull out the card, everything
is back to normal. But then windows runs on safe mode because
it says it failed to boot on the first try. So maybe it almost booted
but I couldn't see the display, so I turned it of and got some
errors on the hardrive like when you get a power failure.
I suspect the cpu could boot correctly. But the card is definitely
messing with my agp card and video display. So no input.

I also suspect it's fried. And do resign to my fate. Thanks,
your replies have been more than helpful man. Now I can
sleep better.