Graphic Card causes system rebooting

Palmettokid

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It all started when I wanted dual monitors, time for the harps and violins of a memory sequence.

I took my son's old ATI Radeon 9000 Pro with 128 megs of video ram and threw it into the AGP slot on my Pcchips M825lu motherboard with onboard graphics. Computer has 512 megs of ram, 400 watts power supply, and an Athalon XP 1800. Well everything was great for several days. I came into my office and noticed that windows XP had failed to load and was displaying the screen to enter safe mode. After trying several things, with no luck, I finally removed the graphics card and restarted the computer and just like magic it booted, loaded programs and waited at the desktop for my next command.

I put the card back in and the problem returned. So I bought a new video card, ATI Radeon 9200 SE, and figured my troubles were over. Not, the new card did the same thing. When it's in, the computer reboots either before Windows gets to the desktop or when it's loading programs for the desktop. Remove the card, all fine. Even tried an Nvidia FX5200. Same problems.

I've changed settings in the bios, put a fan on the computer, and wonder where to go next. I did notice that during some startups there is a flash of a blue screen that probably has information about the error. However its so quick I can't tell what it says. How can I see the error messages?
 
That's a last resort. Right now you want to try your drivers. If not try some other things...
 
Definitely review video drivers and check with ATI's website for corresponding information on your problem. It only happens when a different card (Namely the two ATI cards) are in so it has to do with the drivers for the VGAs. I suggest going to ATI and reinstalling the drivers for your OS and VGA.
 
You are right, formatting is the last resort. Though it has crossed my mind. I'm looking into drivers now but thought it would be strange that both types of cards would have driver issues with my motherboard. Course the board is several years old. Come to think of it we had to change my son's mother board so his 6800 would work.

If I had to choose a card to focus my efforts, the ATI 9200 SE w/128 megs or the Nvidia FX5200 w/256 megs, which one would you suggest?

I'll keep you posted.
 
Update: Went and got the latest drivers for both cards. Installed each card and connected the monitor to it. Brought the system up each time and....

never got past safe mode for either card. The system would reboot while starting safe mode, running a hard ware install wizard, waiting for the desktop to finish loading, or just when it wanted. Windows never started a wizard for the ATI card though.

Fortunately after reconnecting to onboard graphics my system returned to normal after a check disk session.

Well I'm off to plot my next try.
 
Palmettokid said:
You are right, formatting is the last resort. Though it has crossed my mind. I'm looking into drivers now but thought it would be strange that both types of cards would have driver issues with my motherboard. Course the board is several years old. Come to think of it we had to change my son's mother board so his 6800 would work.

If I had to choose a card to focus my efforts, the ATI 9200 SE w/128 megs or the Nvidia FX5200 w/256 megs, which one would you suggest?

I'll keep you posted.

I would go with the nVDIA GeForce FX 5200 w/256mb. BTW try not to double post, you can just use the edit button. :)
 
Nevermind...sorry. I didn't see the time difference. If they were several hours apart, then that's ok. Just don't double post one after the other.
 
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