camn
Active member
Hey, slack... what s3 chip do you use?? and do you use it in a dual-monitor array under w2k? and if so, what driver do you use?
xoxo
xoxo
Slackmaster2K
Gone
I believe it's an S3 Trio 64 PCI card with 2MB...an old card. And I believe that I use the drivers supplied by Win2k. Yes I am using it for my second monitor, using only Win2k's dual monitor support (which installs automatically).
I know that I've had trouble with S3 cards on some newer motherboards though...like an Asus P3B-F. It works fine on my Abit BE6 however.
When I get home I'll find out for sure what that card is. It's been a while since I've thought about it.
P.S. I also had the dual thing under Win2k working with a really old Trident 9440 1MB card...but that card was pretty slow. Anyways, point being that the dual monitor thing seems to work great with crappy old video cards. Are you having a specific problem?
Slackmaster 2000
I know that I've had trouble with S3 cards on some newer motherboards though...like an Asus P3B-F. It works fine on my Abit BE6 however.
When I get home I'll find out for sure what that card is. It's been a while since I've thought about it.
P.S. I also had the dual thing under Win2k working with a really old Trident 9440 1MB card...but that card was pretty slow. Anyways, point being that the dual monitor thing seems to work great with crappy old video cards. Are you having a specific problem?
Slackmaster 2000
camn
Active member
yeah... I have a nice dual-boot dealie going now, and in w2k i cant get my s3 Virge to do dual monitors, as pri or sec. ... but I do have a p2b-f.. anyway, I also cant get my old 1MB trident to go either... I was thinking I would cram the same driver you use onto my s3..(iknow it sounds weird, but ive sone it before)...or something.
btw, my primary is an ATI rage pro.
xoxo
btw, my primary is an ATI rage pro.
xoxo
Slackmaster2K
Gone
Ok, it's an S3 764 and I'm using the default S3 Trio32/64 driver. My primary card (in windows) is an AGP TNT2 Pro 32MB.
Like I said I did have trouble with the S3 on a newer Asus board...in fact I think that if you search deja you'll find some posts about it.
The first thing I would do though would be to load microsoft drivers for BOTH of your cards and see what happens. After that, does that Virge require an IRQ? Actually, I should just stop...why doesn't it work? Do you get errors, or just nothing?
Slackmaster 2000
Like I said I did have trouble with the S3 on a newer Asus board...in fact I think that if you search deja you'll find some posts about it.
The first thing I would do though would be to load microsoft drivers for BOTH of your cards and see what happens. After that, does that Virge require an IRQ? Actually, I should just stop...why doesn't it work? Do you get errors, or just nothing?
Slackmaster 2000
camn
Active member
I get it loaded with the default drivers... and the s3 comes up as... shit I cant check cuz Im in 98... well, it has a little yello ! and I get nary a flicker on monitor 2.
IF I switch to s3 primary... I get the white "loading w2000" screen... and that stays on while everything else loads on my ati(now sec.)monitor.... however the ati monitor is all garbled in this configuration, and I cant read anything. so static on sec...(but I can tell its acting normal under there..) and white boot screen fixed on prim.
xoxo
ps.. Ill bet I can force your driver down its throat.
xoxo
IF I switch to s3 primary... I get the white "loading w2000" screen... and that stays on while everything else loads on my ati(now sec.)monitor.... however the ati monitor is all garbled in this configuration, and I cant read anything. so static on sec...(but I can tell its acting normal under there..) and white boot screen fixed on prim.
xoxo
ps.. Ill bet I can force your driver down its throat.
xoxo
Slackmaster2K
Gone
Ok, your system is setup like such (as well as I could gather from your second paragraph):
SYSTEM PRIMARY: S3
WINDOWS PRIMARY: ATI
WINDOWS SECONDARY: NONE
When your system boots, it's first going to check the PCI bus for video. In this case it finds your S3 card so it uses it and ignores the ATI card.
When windows is first firing up, it's also going to use the system primary for display, because its GUI isn't ready to go yet. Once the GUI is ready, it will switch to the card that you've chosen to be primary in Windows. If you haven't "extended your desktop" over the secondary monitor, windows will TOTALLY ignore it at this point, and you'll continue to see the white "loading windows" screen indefinately. This behavior is 100% normal.
Now the fact that your ATI looks garbled and your S3 is giving a yellow exclamation (when can you see this if you can't see anything???) would lead me to believe that you might have a conflict. Most likely the conflict is between the two cards...either they're trying to share an IRQ or their sharing I/O ranges. It might also be possible that adding the S3 card caused a shift in resource allocation that does not agree with the ATI card.
1) MOVE THE S3 CARD to another slot. Resources are controlled by physical location on the PCI bus. Also note that all motherboards will have PCI limitations. At least one slot will share with AGP, one will share with the IDE controller (which is also a PCI device, remember), and often times a pair will share with eachother. Consult your mobo manual!
2) The fact that you tell that windows is working underneath the "garbled screen" on the monitor connected to the ATI would suggest that perhaps the problem is not due to resources but something much much simpler, like the refresh rate! Is the monitor you're connecting to the ATI card usually connected to that card, or did you swap?
Slackmaster 2000
SYSTEM PRIMARY: S3
WINDOWS PRIMARY: ATI
WINDOWS SECONDARY: NONE
When your system boots, it's first going to check the PCI bus for video. In this case it finds your S3 card so it uses it and ignores the ATI card.
When windows is first firing up, it's also going to use the system primary for display, because its GUI isn't ready to go yet. Once the GUI is ready, it will switch to the card that you've chosen to be primary in Windows. If you haven't "extended your desktop" over the secondary monitor, windows will TOTALLY ignore it at this point, and you'll continue to see the white "loading windows" screen indefinately. This behavior is 100% normal.
Now the fact that your ATI looks garbled and your S3 is giving a yellow exclamation (when can you see this if you can't see anything???) would lead me to believe that you might have a conflict. Most likely the conflict is between the two cards...either they're trying to share an IRQ or their sharing I/O ranges. It might also be possible that adding the S3 card caused a shift in resource allocation that does not agree with the ATI card.
1) MOVE THE S3 CARD to another slot. Resources are controlled by physical location on the PCI bus. Also note that all motherboards will have PCI limitations. At least one slot will share with AGP, one will share with the IDE controller (which is also a PCI device, remember), and often times a pair will share with eachother. Consult your mobo manual!
2) The fact that you tell that windows is working underneath the "garbled screen" on the monitor connected to the ATI would suggest that perhaps the problem is not due to resources but something much much simpler, like the refresh rate! Is the monitor you're connecting to the ATI card usually connected to that card, or did you swap?
Slackmaster 2000
R
RWhite
Well-known member
Slack's advise is all good. All PCI slots share IRQs to a point, not all motherboard manuals explain this. One trend I have noticed is that on most boards PCI slot 1 shares resources with the AGP slot. So make sure your PCI video is not in slot 1.
camn
Active member
nonononononono.. its
SYSTEM PRIMARY: ati
WINDOWS PRIMARY: ati
WINDOWS SECONDARY: s3
(the garbled thing is when I TRY to switch sytem primary to s3... which I dont do very often)
I get nothing on secondary monitor. Ever.
And Win2000 has been completely ignoring my MB IRQ assignments and assigning everything pci or agp to IRQ 9. Which is cool, since most everything is disabled...(im using 2000 for recording only.)
xoxoxo
ps... my cards share IRQ 11 under 98... and it works fine... my s3 is in slot 2, ati in agp.
SYSTEM PRIMARY: ati
WINDOWS PRIMARY: ati
WINDOWS SECONDARY: s3
(the garbled thing is when I TRY to switch sytem primary to s3... which I dont do very often)
I get nothing on secondary monitor. Ever.
And Win2000 has been completely ignoring my MB IRQ assignments and assigning everything pci or agp to IRQ 9. Which is cool, since most everything is disabled...(im using 2000 for recording only.)
xoxoxo
ps... my cards share IRQ 11 under 98... and it works fine... my s3 is in slot 2, ati in agp.
Slackmaster2K
Gone
Ok, well then maybe you should leave your S3 card as system primary...this setting has little effect on what's going to happen once you're in windows.
I'm about to write a very long procedure, but I think that if you follow it you can get your system running with dual monitors, IF IT IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE with your current hardware (there might be something ugly going on).
1) Boot up however you can.
2) Remove the ATI card from the windows device manager. Windows will ask you to shutdown or reboot. Do so, but don't restart, shut down.
3) Remove the ATI card from the computer.
3a) If you're comfortable with it, you might remove the rest of your PCI devices (except for the S3). You don't *have* to though.
4) Make sure that the S3 card is in a good PCI slot where you shouldn't have any problems. Connect a monitor to it of course.
5) Turn the machine on and enter the BIOS setup.
6) Reset the BIOS to setup defaults. Or at least change your settings to reflect that you want to scan PCI for video over AGP. Also, at least for the moment, don't try to override any of the PCI settings. Set them to automatic or "PnP OS Installed".
7) Save and exit setup. Let the machine reboot.
8) Windows will now start. Chances are it'll startup just fine and automatically install the right driver. If it is fine, skip to number 10.
9) If you are here, then there is a problem with your S3 card, its configuration, its driver, or a combination of these things. Try to determine exactly what is wrong.
If you get a "Driver not properly installed" then:
a) Change the driver to "Standard VGA Adapter" (or similar) and restart windows.
b) When windows restarts, check out your display adapter, it should appear to be working properly, even though you're using the generic driver. Now change the driver back to the "S3 Virge" and restart.
c) When you restart, take another look at the card in device manager. If it's still showing "Driver not installed" or something similar, then you should download updated Win2k drivers. Repeat this procedure using the new drivers and see what happens.
If you get a resource conflict of some sort:
a) Shut the machine down.
b) Just physically move the dang card to another PCI slot. Preferably one that is truely available. You never did answer whether the S3 Virge uses an IRQ or not.
c) Restart. If it's still not working, repeat. If you can't get it to work anywhere, start searching dejanews. Like I said, S3 cards are iffy with some mobos.
10) If you are here it means that your S3 card is installed properly and is working properly with an S3 virge driver. Congrats.
11) Shut the machine down completely and reinstall the ATI card. Connect the second monitor to the ATI card.
12) Boot the machine. You will see the bootup process on the monitor connected to the S3. This is normal.
13) When the windows GUI loads, it will PROBABLY load on the monitor connected to the S3 because you haven't setup dual monitor support yet. If windows loads then skip to 15. If there is a problem, continue to 14.
14) What is the problem?
- Do you see garbled shit on the ATI monitor?
If so, try swapping monitors. It's very possible that there is a refresh rate problem.
- Did the windows GUI load on the ATI monitor, leaving the S3 monitor with the 'loading windows' screen?
If so, there isn't a problem. Skip to 15.
- Do you see nothing on the ATI monitor and just the windows bootup screen on the S3 monitor?
If so, then you need to repeat this ENTIRE PROCEDURE, except with the ATI CARD! The idea is to get one card working perfectly before adding the second. If you repeat the procedure with the ATI card, you might still need to experiment with the placement of the S3 card.
15) Once you're in windows, go into the device manager and make sure that the device drivers for the ATI card are setup properly. If they are not:
a) Change the driver to "Standard VGA" and restart.
b) Once you're restarted, change the driver to the correct MICROSOFT ATI driver. Restart.
c) If this works, great. If it doesn't, then try downloading some new drivers from ATI.
16) Once both of your cards are setup, go into the display settings and setup your dual monitors. Click the one you want to be primary and make sure to check the "use this monitor as my primary monitor". Then click the one you want to be secondary make sure to check the "extend my desktop across this monitor"
17) If you are here, then you've got two working video cards and one hell of a desktop.
18) Download and install the latest drivers for both of your cards, if you want to.
19) If you removed any other PCI cards in step 3a, reinstall them now.
If this doesn't work, try to dig up another PCI video card...anything. OR, try to dig up a different AGP card...perhaps the ATI card is to blame!
The idea whenever you're troubleshooting something like this is to eliminate possibilites. Try to get a small set of things working instead of always trying for the whole thing at once.
That's all from memory so fill in the gaps where necessary. I wish you good luck because having two monitors can be the shit!
Slackmaster 2000
I'm about to write a very long procedure, but I think that if you follow it you can get your system running with dual monitors, IF IT IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE with your current hardware (there might be something ugly going on).
1) Boot up however you can.
2) Remove the ATI card from the windows device manager. Windows will ask you to shutdown or reboot. Do so, but don't restart, shut down.
3) Remove the ATI card from the computer.
3a) If you're comfortable with it, you might remove the rest of your PCI devices (except for the S3). You don't *have* to though.
4) Make sure that the S3 card is in a good PCI slot where you shouldn't have any problems. Connect a monitor to it of course.
5) Turn the machine on and enter the BIOS setup.
6) Reset the BIOS to setup defaults. Or at least change your settings to reflect that you want to scan PCI for video over AGP. Also, at least for the moment, don't try to override any of the PCI settings. Set them to automatic or "PnP OS Installed".
7) Save and exit setup. Let the machine reboot.
8) Windows will now start. Chances are it'll startup just fine and automatically install the right driver. If it is fine, skip to number 10.
9) If you are here, then there is a problem with your S3 card, its configuration, its driver, or a combination of these things. Try to determine exactly what is wrong.
If you get a "Driver not properly installed" then:
a) Change the driver to "Standard VGA Adapter" (or similar) and restart windows.
b) When windows restarts, check out your display adapter, it should appear to be working properly, even though you're using the generic driver. Now change the driver back to the "S3 Virge" and restart.
c) When you restart, take another look at the card in device manager. If it's still showing "Driver not installed" or something similar, then you should download updated Win2k drivers. Repeat this procedure using the new drivers and see what happens.
If you get a resource conflict of some sort:
a) Shut the machine down.
b) Just physically move the dang card to another PCI slot. Preferably one that is truely available. You never did answer whether the S3 Virge uses an IRQ or not.
c) Restart. If it's still not working, repeat. If you can't get it to work anywhere, start searching dejanews. Like I said, S3 cards are iffy with some mobos.
10) If you are here it means that your S3 card is installed properly and is working properly with an S3 virge driver. Congrats.
11) Shut the machine down completely and reinstall the ATI card. Connect the second monitor to the ATI card.
12) Boot the machine. You will see the bootup process on the monitor connected to the S3. This is normal.
13) When the windows GUI loads, it will PROBABLY load on the monitor connected to the S3 because you haven't setup dual monitor support yet. If windows loads then skip to 15. If there is a problem, continue to 14.
14) What is the problem?
- Do you see garbled shit on the ATI monitor?
If so, try swapping monitors. It's very possible that there is a refresh rate problem.
- Did the windows GUI load on the ATI monitor, leaving the S3 monitor with the 'loading windows' screen?
If so, there isn't a problem. Skip to 15.
- Do you see nothing on the ATI monitor and just the windows bootup screen on the S3 monitor?
If so, then you need to repeat this ENTIRE PROCEDURE, except with the ATI CARD! The idea is to get one card working perfectly before adding the second. If you repeat the procedure with the ATI card, you might still need to experiment with the placement of the S3 card.
15) Once you're in windows, go into the device manager and make sure that the device drivers for the ATI card are setup properly. If they are not:
a) Change the driver to "Standard VGA" and restart.
b) Once you're restarted, change the driver to the correct MICROSOFT ATI driver. Restart.
c) If this works, great. If it doesn't, then try downloading some new drivers from ATI.
16) Once both of your cards are setup, go into the display settings and setup your dual monitors. Click the one you want to be primary and make sure to check the "use this monitor as my primary monitor". Then click the one you want to be secondary make sure to check the "extend my desktop across this monitor"
17) If you are here, then you've got two working video cards and one hell of a desktop.
18) Download and install the latest drivers for both of your cards, if you want to.
19) If you removed any other PCI cards in step 3a, reinstall them now.
If this doesn't work, try to dig up another PCI video card...anything. OR, try to dig up a different AGP card...perhaps the ATI card is to blame!
The idea whenever you're troubleshooting something like this is to eliminate possibilites. Try to get a small set of things working instead of always trying for the whole thing at once.
That's all from memory so fill in the gaps where necessary. I wish you good luck because having two monitors can be the shit!
Slackmaster 2000
camn
Active member
ok. will try. I love my dual monitors. I want them in 2000, too.
xoxo
xoxo