Hi guys,

I ordered some new parts to UG my old rig into basically something nice, new and very shiney! The package came this morning, and like a child on a cold christmas morning, i burst open my box and fumbled to get my new toys into the open.
40 mins later and the machine is built, i flick on the power supply and..... one beep. Yep, the machine passed the bios check, great i thought, until i noticed nothing was happening on my monitor. The damned thing was stuck on standby! How dare it!! Anyways i turn off the rig, de-static myself and then had a look inside. Everything was correct and in the right place. DOH! But then a streak of genius hits me! this board hsa onboard graphics, maybe , just maybe i have to turn that off to get the PCI-e card working. So i take out the Radeon, pop the monitor into the mobo and turned on the power...Sucess! the machine turned on, beeped and the monitor came on, taking me into bios. This mobo (ASUS A8N-VN CSM Micro ATX) has the most complicated bios ever, but i did what i thought would turn the onboard VGA off and reset the mother. Annoying beeps, perfect, just perfect. But like an enthusiast i turned off the rig and popped in the 1800XT, just to check. Nothing.


So what i'm proposing to you more technically minded people out there. What the heck am i doing wrong here?

The system spec:
AMD Athlon 4000+ socket 939 (san Diego) @ 2400
ASUS A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX Mobo
Seasonic s12 500w Silent ATX2.0 power unit
2.0g DDR400 Elixir RAM
Connect3D ATI radeon XT 1800 XT 256mg (puppy on last weeks offers )

anything i can add later.

Also as a note , i cannot test the mobo or the card with another rig as my two flat mates use AGP based systems.

Thanks in advance

- Pete

Can you get into or install windows with the onboard VGA?

The option in the bios will give you thr4 choice of what display to initialise first. Does it say in the manual what setting you need?

well i'm kinda running the rig off the Vga now so yeah, windows is on and running very well. in BIOs i think the choices were:

PCI>PCI-e>IGP
and
IGP>PCI-e>PCI

in the instructions it says:

NvigpBridge/c51PV Chipset configuration:

Primary Graphics Adaptor: Allows selection of the graphics controller to use as primary boot device. Configuration options (as stated above)

Onchip VgA frame buffer size : Allows to disable or set the onboard VGA frame buffer size. Options (disable) (16mb)(32mb)(64mb)(128mb)

Onchip VGA Trap enable [disabled]:
Allows to enable or disable the onchip VGA trap reature, which patches some LINUX systems that cannot be installed with an onchip VGA. Options enable or disable


hope that helps

I had this problem last week when taking my PCI-E X1800XT out and putting a PCI 9200SE in. I never did find a solution.

Card worked fine in another PC, wouldn't boot in mine.

try updating bios with a different card in the system.

i'll give it a go, see what happens. I'll post again shortly

no joy

With the bios set to enable PCI-E first, the card in place (power lead in card presumably, and 4 pin connector in mobo ?).
What is the beep code .. ie: how many and are they short or long beeps or a mix ?

Vogon said:

With the bios set to enable PCI-E first, the card in place (power lead in card presumably, and 4 pin connector in mobo ?).
What is the beep code .. ie: how many and are they short or long beeps or a mix ?

Click to expand...

right, in mobo there is no option to set pci-e first, just pci or IGP.

just one Question, what 4 pin plug? i might sound like a n00b but im sure i'd have picked up on it, does it connect to the GPU in a special place or something?

Newer cards use more power, so you need to use the correct PCI-E graphics power cable from your PSU into the graphics card. It's along the edge of the videocard. Won't work otherwise.

RTM - PSU and GFX card.

4 pin in mobo .. its at the top edge of the board, between the cpu socket and the keyboard/mouse sockets.
The graphics card has a 6 pin connector that should be plugged into the back edge of the card .... sorry if it sounds obvious, just trying to ensure nothing has been overlooked

Oh and while we are at it, you did plug the monitor into the output on the graphics card, not the onboard ?

If no PCI first option, choose the PCI>PCI-E>IGP option

Vogon said:

4 pin in mobo .. its at the top edge of the board, between the cpu socket and the keyboard/mouse sockets.
The graphics card has a 6 pin connector that should be plugged into the back edge of the card .... sorry if it sounds obvious, just trying to ensure nothing has been overlooked

Oh and while we are at it, you did plug the monitor into the output on the graphics card, not the onboard ?

Click to expand...

yeah the 4pin is in and yes, i test with the monitor in the GPU not the mobo , but even if it was in the mobo, it still wont work with the gpu in anyways.

So with the the PCI>PCI-E>IGP option in bios, and X1800 in place (make sure its fully home) with PCI-E power lead into graphics card, what is the beep code you are getting ?

i'm getting the standard one beep when you would boot normally, i did notice the pc must check the USB ports then hang as my mouse light would stay on (infra red) instead of just flashing on/off.

Hmm if there was a Video error it would give one long, 2 short beeps.
One long beep says its healthy.
Does the fan on the graphics card spin up ?
Do you have a PS2 mouse to try ?
What happens if the X1800 is in but you set bios to boot from IGP first ?

i'll have to try the IGP first, and dig up an old mouse. #Gonna grab a bite to eat then try, expect a post within 15 mins.

Also, if you look down by were the 6 pin plug goes into the back of the graphics card, when you press the PC power button you should get a red light appear here for a little while then go out ?

yeah the red LED flashes on then off (like a fraction of a second).

Still no joy after last attempt. Gonan call it a night for now, i have the day off tomorrow. Gonna look for a place to take the card to be tested, to see if its the card or my stupidity.

Interesting montymint. I just took delivery of a Connect3D X1800XT on Tuesday and although I have a different mobo can't get the card to work. See the thread "X1800XT DOA?". If you find a solution I'd be interested to here it, although I'm going to ring OcUK today and see what they say.

For me too the red light briefly flashes, the gfx card fan is going but I get just a black screen and a lot of BIOS beeps.

i rang them this morning, they told me to try to test the card elsewhere before sending the RMA, as it could be a Mobo fault. i doubt it. i'm meeting a friend with a pci-e ready rig and i'll test it there.