Matt 2005-01-26 10:31
When should I install my second card, before or after I install a fresh copy of WinXP Pro? The main card is an AGP ATI Radeon 9000 Pro and the secondary is a PCI Matrox G200. Anybody know the best order to do the install? Should I install windows and get the computer setup then install the Matrox or should I put the card in and then do the WinXP install?
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Tantalus 2005-01-26 12:42
generally the order is not significant but the general rule of thumb is you'd install the primary video card first (which is usually your agp card), then install any pci cards afterwards.
if you have a very old pci card which is not being detected for whatever reason, you might try reversing the order.
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Matt 2005-01-26 14:21
I was more wondering about WHEN I install it BEFORE or AFTER I install Windows?
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Tantalus 2005-01-26 14:38
then you need to reread my post.
BEFORE or AFTER isn't the issue here...
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Matt 2005-01-26 17:11
I did re read your post and you say that you want to install your agp card first and pci second but if I install both before I install WinXP then they are both already installed before I even have the OS, so are you talking about drivers or physically installing the card? ( this maybe the confusion)
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Tantalus 2005-01-27 07:35
insert the agp card first and proceed with windows install. afterwards, check your bios settigs...to make sure your agp device is initialized first. (this avoids any unnecessary confusion later when the second card is inserted and booted up).
after the agp card is working correctly, power down insert the pci card, and proceed from there...
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Slackmaster K 2005-02-06 03:21
good advice. This all depends on whether or not your PCI card is on the Microsoft Hardware Control list. Non-supported cards don't like to be slaves to another card and want to be the primary. If your PCI card is not on the list (like my S3 Virge), you can still multimon it but you'll need to set it to scan PCI first (after you've installed the AGP card and drivers). This will allow the PCI card to be found and able to start. Otherwise you may get a Windoze error 'this device cannot start' on the PCI card. This is the workaround I had to use to fix this problem. It's also why I can't run my fourth monitor, because I can't have two primary PCI cards and my S3 Virge is going to waste in favor of the Xpert 128.
Kevin Connolly - kevin@idxt.biz
President, IDXT Computing
www.idxt.biz
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