Is there a jumper on the motherboard (besides the BIOS setting) that physically disables the onboard video when you're not using it?
On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Mark Phillips wrote: > Hi all, > > Let me tell you about strange happenings on my computer. Any > suggestions/ideas would be most appreciated, though could you please cc a > copy to me directly as I am currently reading the list on the web which > usually has a day or two delay. > > I currently use a PCI graphics card on my computer, even though my > motherboard has a built in graphics card. The reason for this is that X > did not support the onboard chipset. This has changed however --- I > believe it is now supported. I decided to bite the bullet and get my > onboard card working. Let me tell you my strange and twisted story. > > 0. I should first mention that I have just done a very minimal upgrade to > a few potato packages - basically just enough to get the latest apt > working, as well as the XFree86 version 3.3.4 packages to install. This > could possibly be relevant --- potato being unstable and all. > > 1. Having downloaded the latest XFree86 (version 3.3.4), I tried it on my > existing setup (with my PCI graphics card) and it seemed to work fine. > > 2. I rebooted, got into BIOS setup, and tried to turn on my onboard > graphics card. I found the BIOS option to do this, but the option was > shadowed --- so that I was unable to change it from disabled to enabled. > This was strange because the onboard card was turned on when I first got > the new motherboard and I had been able to turn it off. I figured I > needed to change some other option before it would allow me to turn the > graphics card on. I fiddled with all sorts of things, but nothing would > let me do it. > > 3. I tried physically removing the PCI graphics card, in the hope that > then it would be forced to use the onboard card, but when I turned it on, > it just beeped wildly at me. > > 4. One action of the BIOS setup menu is to choose "optimal settings", I > tried this to see what it would do, and it actually turned the onboard > graphics card setting to "enabled", though it was still in shadow so that > I couldn't ajust this or any of the associated settings (such as how much > memory to give the onboard card). I didn't actually keep these settings > on exiting BIOS setup, for fear of nasty things happening, like neither > graphics card working. > > 5. I gave up on changing graphics cards for the time being, so returned my > PCI graphics card, and rebooted. I went to start up X and the screen went > black. I tried changing back to a console and though at first it didn't > work, eventually it did go back to console mode. I then switched back to > X. This time the background and cursor came up properly, but the mouse > wouldn't move. No response. I tried going back to consoles, but this > time it wouldn't work. I tried kiling X through Ctr-Alt-Backspace but > this didn't work, something did happen (see aside below), but X didn't die > and the screen remained unchanged. Eventually I had to turn the > machine off and on to get back. > > Aside: in the past (with this motherboard) when I have tried to exit X via > Ctr-Alt-Backspace, something weird has happened. The harddrives have > suddenly shutdown, then a few seconds later they start powering up again. > It's a bit worrying and I don't know why it happens. I usually avoid this > problem by getting out via a menu. Anyway, this time when I pressed > Ctr-Alt-Backspace the disks powered down as has happened previously, but > the was no exiting X! In fact when I did it a second time, the powering > down happened again -- and still no change on the screen. > > So that's where I am now. X doesn't work anymore and I don't know why. > Was it something to do with me fiddling with BIOS, or pulling the card out > and back in again? Or was it something to do with the new XFree86 (3.3.4) > that only showed up after a reboot? Or is the hardware playing up? Or is > it something to do with moving to some potato packages? Or what? > > And why can't I select the onboard graphics card??? Are the BIOS options > faulty? Or do I need to turn something else on/off before it works? Or > is the graphics card hardware onboard dead or something? Or what? > > If any ideas spring to mind, I'd appreciate hearing them. > > Thanks, > > Mark. > > _/~~~~~~~~\___/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________ > ____/~~\_____/~~\__/~~\__________________________Mark_Phillips____________ > ____/~~\_____/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ____/~~\HE___/~~\__/~~\APTAIN_____________________________________________ > ____/~~\______/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________ > __________________________________________________________________________ > "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!" > > > > > -- > Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null > > +-----------------------------------+--------------------------------+ | Nate Duehr - [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Support Amateur Radio & Linux! | | Private Pilot, Telephony Engineer | Ham Callsign: N0NTZ | | UNIX Hack, Perl Hack, Tech-Freak | Grid Square: DM79 | | | "May the Source be with you." | +-----------------------------------+--------------------------------+ | HamRadio and Linux mailing lists available for interested parties: | | http://www.natetech.com/mailman/listinfo | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
