GPU not recognized

[puffaSmoke]

Hello All!, another noob here

I would try SEARCH, but one of my newest troubles makes that most challenging. The browser, as well as other windows, closes unexpectedly while I'm working, going back to the desktop with nothing on the toolbar. I have installed a new HDD after suffering a major malware infection on the old HDD.. got so bad system wouldn't boot.. planned to install new HDD then slave to old to salvage some old files.
The new hard drive is in with XP installed. I can't get the thing to recognize the grafix card.. even with BIOS set for INIT AGP.. Devices Manager only shows the onboard (VIA/S3 UniChrome PRO).. I even disable it and it makes no difference. Everest indicates:
AGP Status Enabled
as well as
AGP Device VIA/S3 Unichrome Pro Integrated

What am I doing wrong?
I'm asuming that the Radeon X1300 XGE is a plug and play device, so shouldn't windows give me a 'found new hardware' msg??
I thought perhaps that I had a bad graphic card so I bought a new one and the symtoms are identical.
Using Everest to indicate Total Physical Memory I sometimes see 447MB.. sometimes I see only 197MB (I have two 256MB sticks installed!)
I expect that the RAM issue is causing tasks to close without warning (and I'll upgrade to 1GB if the GPU can be made functional), but why doesn't Device Manager show the Radeon card under Display Adapters

Thanks,
Mike
Jetway PM9MSR2, Intel P4 Northwood HT 2.8GHZ, 2x256MB RAM (generic), XP Pro SP2, WD800JBRTL, Radeon X1300 XGE

 

[D-Lew]

This may sound like a stupid question, but did you install the drivers?

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

yeah its plug and play, but you still gotta install drivers....

 

[mammikoura]

well to me it seems that you are still running with the onboard vid card. That would explain why you it doesn't show you all the ram, some of it is used by the vid card.
As to not recognizing the vid card, can't really say. But there is probably something wrong in the bios. You could try flashing the bios. And if you manage to boot with the x1300, download the newest drivers from the internet (or use the old ones that are on the cd that came with the vid card). Don't let windows install it's own drivers for the vid card, because they will not work well.

 

[LambOfGod]

Here is the Link to your specific driver

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonx-xp.html

 

[puffaSmoke]

thanks guys

I understand that a portion of the Ram will allocate to onboard graphics, but the memory shows sometimes as 447MB and othertimes way less- 197MB IIRC might have even been 191MB -which would be exactly 256MB difference-
this disparity occurs under similar loads

The first card (which is only 2 months old) came with Visiontek V6.4 CD... installed that software, no joy

The card I bought yesterday came with V6.7 CD...
installed that software, no difference
so I don't think that's the issue

shouldn't Windows 'find' the plug and play card and ask if I want to install iteven before the driver CD is used?

 

[mammikoura]

shouldn't Windows 'find' the plug and play card and ask if I want to install iteven before the driver CD is used?

yes it should. Because this doesn't happen, and because some of the ram seems to be used by the onboard vid card it's not using the x1300. And are u sure that u saved the bios settings when u disabled the onboard graphics. And the monitor is plugged into the x1300, right?

 

[Raffaz]

Try resetting ya BIOS, and try removing and reseating the graphics card. Also make sure you have connected the power cable to the graphics card. And make sure ya onboard graphics are disabled in the BIOS

 

[puffaSmoke]

yes it should. Because this doesn't happen, and because some of the ram seems to be used by the onboard vid card it's not using the x1300. And are u sure that u saved the bios settings when u disabled the onboard graphics. And the monitor is plugged into the x1300, right?

what is weird to me is how the Physical RAM sometimes indicates ~256MB under where it should be

the only BIOS adjustment was in Integrated Peripherals, Init Display First
I selected AGP. The other two choices being PCI and Onboard.
And on exit I saved it as such.
isn't that all it takes to do it?

Monitor has been tried in both dvi outs

 

[mammikoura]

well the reason that the amount of ram is different sometimes is because the vid card uses it when it needs to. At least I think so, never used an onboard vid card so can't say for sure. But when it's working, it uses more ram than it does when it's idle. And every good vid card uses atleast 256mb of ram, though the onboard one ain't good, it's still possible for it to use 256mb of ram. Though usually it's not that much.