deftangel 2005-05-09 22:19
Hi there,
I've read a few threads on using a 6600GT with a PCI 5200 but the advice given is a little ambiguous so I'm hoping someone who's got this working can enlighten me as to how they went about installing it.
What I've done so far, I've bought a Shuttle Barebones and installed both cards in. On boot, the BIOS was already set to Init PCI first. Loaded WinXP with SP2 no problems. Windows correctly detected the PCI card but no 6600GT, although I did have an Unknown VGA adaptor.
Stupidly, without reading these forums first I tried to update the unknown driver using the CD with the 6600GT. This didn't seem to work too well so I downloaded some from Gainward's website (66.97) and installed them. On a reboot, the 6600GT worked so two monitors were now on using the MultiView wizard. However, the PCI card stopped working.
Thinking I knew what I was on about, I then used the CD to load the drivers for the PCI 5200FX and rebooted.
Now no matter what I set to the BIOS to, AGP or PCI init first, all three monitors will try to start up but the display freezes and the machine reboots.
Obviously, I'll need to re-install, my question is, whats the best way to do so? Should I install XP with only one of the cards in (if so which one) If I use both, does the BIOS setting affect anything?
From reading other posts, once I get it working on one display, I'm to remove the devices from the device manager, reboot so it picks them up as Vanilla VGA cards and then load the latest NVidia drivers ONCE?
Is that right?
Any help greatly appreciated!
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Tantalus 2005-05-10 00:16
i've never installed a 6600 but this is these are the steps you generally should follow.
1) for a card like the fx5200, you generally don't need to to set the bios to PCI first. set it back to AGP.
2) remove the pci card from the machine. if you can get the system to boot, delete the device from device manager
3) get the 6600 agp working...you should use the proper driver from nvidia's site. do NOT use the driver from the cd or from gainward's site. run the complete install...ie. run setup.exe and get the dual output working as desired.
4) once the agp is properly set up and only then, you can physically install the pci card and boot.
5) the os will detect a new adapter, see if you can point it to the same driver for the 6600. reboot after the install and check device manager to see if the pci is lumped in under "Display Adapters". if not, click on the device and click on "Update driver" under the driver tab. point it to the cd drivers (unpack them beforehand to a temp folder if they are in zip or exe format).
6) then use the windows display properties window to extend the desktop to the pci display.
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Tantalus 2005-05-10 00:22
just to clairfy step #5...
do NOT run the setup.exe that is on the fx5200 cd. you merely to load the the driver inf directly from the unpacked folder/cd.
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deftangel 2005-05-10 01:39
Tantalus, thanks a lot for the detail in your reply. I'll give that a try tonight.
I should get the drivers from the nVidia website rather than the card vendor I take it? Gainward's website didn't seem to be that up to date.
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Tantalus 2005-05-10 02:02
>I should get the drivers from the nVidia website rather than the card vendor I take it? Gainward's website didn't seem to be that up to date.
yes, use the nvidia driver.
it's not just that the nvidia driver is more recent (i've seen cases where problems were caused by newer drivers which did not occur ith older drivers), as it is that gainward might have customized the driver to only work with the 6600 making it less compatible with other nvidia chipsets.
btw, once you install the drivers for the 6600, use Nview to get the dual displays working. then proceed with the pci card as outline. remember to change the bios setting to agp first.
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deftangel 2005-05-10 06:18
Cheers Tantalus, that seemed to do the trick, you rock!
I'll be adding my system to the gallery and database as soon as I get it all sorted out.
Thanks again!
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deftangel 2005-05-10 09:33
Ok I spoke to soon :(
Happy that I'd sorted it, I shutdown the PC and went out. Next time I came in to switch it on, the display fails to initialise and it reboots. All I can do is get it to safe mode.
In safe mode both Graphics cards are listed under display adpaters and are using the 71.89 driver. It says the PCI device (5200FX) has a problem so I uninstall that and reboot. It has now uninstalled drivers for both graphics cards leaving me with the vanilla VGA adapter.
Any ideas??
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Tantalus 2005-05-10 11:36
whoa...let's back-track a momemt.
were you able to get the 6600 working by itself (steps #1-3) and sending output to both displays?
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deftangel 2005-05-10 13:04
Yeah I did, bizarrely though it's working now. I got the 6600GT working as I wanted ("steps 1-3") so I shutdown, installed the PCI card and rebooted. WinXP detected it automatically and also started using the latest drivers (71.89) without me doing anything. I was able to enable the monitor using nView and everything. Sweet! I thought!
Then I rebooted and the system didn't want to know and power cycled when trying to load windows. I was able to get into safe mode and uninstall the drivers. This actualy removed the drivers for both cards.
On a whim, I then ran the nVidia drivers again and I was back up on 3 monitors. Have since rebooted twice and all is ok...so far..
A bit wierd but hey.
Thanks for your help again Tantalus.
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deftangel 2005-05-11 05:06
Thanks for all the help so far, however, I still can't seem to get a stable setup so I wonder if anyone else had any ideas.
I originally got all three monitors to work by re-installing WinXP with just the AGP card in. I then got both monitors on the AGP card to work as I wanted, rebooted and re-installed the PCI card.
On reboot, WinXP detected it and I was able to point to the same drivers and got it working. All well and good. Shutdown and went out.
Came back and the system would not start properly. All I could do was boot into safe mode. In safe mode I attempted to un-install the PCI card which actually had the effect of un-installing both cards. Upon reboot I was able to run the latest nVidia drivers ONCE which picked up both cards. All three monitors now working again. Being slightly more cynical, I rebooted twice to make sure all was ok, which it was and managed to get to bed.
Wake up this morning and WinXP won't start again. The monitor connected to the PCI gives signal out of range. (It's on VGA till I get another DVI cable). Not amused I stormed off to work, came back and repeated the previous paragraph. Now have three monitors on again, however I'd like to get them to stay that way now!
A couple of queries.
* Anybody encounter this kind of instability before and what did you do about it?
* If I select Display Properties > Highlight the primary monitor > Advanced and click on the GeForce6600GT tab. The nView display settings only come under the 6600GT. Using this dialog box I'm only able to configure the 2 monitors connected to the AGP card.
The 5200 PCI card is listed in the breakout menu on the left, however it appears to have no knowledge of the other 3 monitors. I was able to get the 3 to work by using the normal Windows display properties and extending the desktop to this monitor. Possibly a cause of problems?
* As I mentioned, the monitor is currently running off a VGA cable. I haven't explicitly set the Resolution and refresh rate as it's set correctly as is, there shouldn't be a reason for it to change so quite why I got the signal out of range error I don't know?
I've tried reading a few threads on here and I can't quite find a similar problem, I can get it to work just not for long! Any help muchas appreciated!
My setup to save scrolling up.
Shuttle SN95G5 Barebones
Athlon 64 3000 skt 939
1 GB Corsair XMS matched pair
Western Digital Raptor 74GB HD
NEC 3520A DVD RW
Gainward Geforce 6600GT 1960 128Mb AGP Dual DVI / VIVO
XFX Geforce 5200 PCI 256Mb DVI/VGA/TV OUT
3 x Dell 1800 FP 18" TFT screens
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Seahorse 2005-05-11 07:47
My GF6600GT needed the VGA Device driver installed from the CD the card came with installed to cure the problem. Slapping card in caused problems as did installing Forceware over teh top of current ones.
METHOD:
Uninstall all video drivers, reboot - default win VGA drivers work.
Install DX9. Reboot.
Install VGA Drivers from CD that came with 6600GT. Reboot.
Install current Forceware drivers. Reboot.
Turn on third monitor (extend windows to this display)...
--
Rdgs
Mike
www.Dead-Fish.Com Deep sea Daddies...
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Deam 2005-05-12 01:04
About the 5200, from my guess, why would it know about the other monitors unless it is dual head? Nview relates only two the dual head feature of ONE card. Unless your 5200 has dual head capability, and two monitors connected to it, it won't have Nview.
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deftangel 2005-05-12 01:47
I thought the driver might work out that it was running two cards (as both the 5200 and the 6600GT are using the same driver) and use the nView software to manage the multiple displays.
The nView menu was inside the 6600GT menu so I wouldn't be suprised that's the case. I just read another thread on here that mentioned "Use the nView manager to set up the monitors" and thought it might be part of the problem.
I was too chicken to reboot yesterday and see if one stopped working. If it doesn't start properly when I get in I'll try SeaView's method.
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deftangel 2005-05-13 04:41
Yesterday the same thing happened. Got it all working, was fine all night. Switch it on in the morning and the PC monitor complains that the signal is out of range (it is set correctly). Windows doesn't start. However, all three monitors turn on after the next reboot!
So I thought maybe I was getting somewhere but today I couldn't get the PCI monitor to start again, even after leaving it several reboots. Hence I've tried Seahorse's method of installing the Gainward 6600GT driver from the CD.
To my admittedly untrained eye, I'd say it was a slightly older version of the nVidia drivers (71.1x I think) It certainly didn't seem to have any specific features, Gainward have a serpate EXpert tool to install.
All is working now. Fingers crossed it'll be ok when I switch on again in a few hours.
Sorry to keep bumping this thread!
deftangel
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deftangel 2005-05-15 04:35
Arrgh this is driving me insane. Despite using SeaView's method, 9/10 when rebooting the display locks up again. Uninstall and Reinstall of Forceware makes it work, even for warm reboots but the next cold one will fail.
I've been using it with just the two panels connected to the 6600GT so I don't think it's the card.
Tried PCI as primary which didn't seem to make much difference. I'm using a barebones shuttle system. I know people running 6800s with dual raptors and not have any issues but might it be a power problem? I don't know how power hungry a PCI 5200 might be? Is it worth trying a different PCI card??
Any other idea? I'm at a bit of a loss here :(
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Seahorse 2005-05-15 04:48
1 x 6600 is a greedy bastid. Check wattage for graphics cards vs output from PSU.
Mine kept crashing until I put the 6600GT on its own MOLEX. I have a 460W PSU...
--
Rdgs
Mike
www.Dead-Fish.Com Deep sea Daddies...
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bill 2005-05-30 14:16
I'm having precisely the same problem. I did notice in the windows help section that PCI video cards often have to be in PCI slot 1 to work.
Unfortunately, I can't get the AGP 6600 and the PCI 5200 next to each due to the depth of the fans.
I'm going to try nvidia tomorrow.
Bill
Specs:
AMD 64 3200+ (754)
XFX 6600 & 5200 (256)
Asus K8VSE Deluxe Mobo
XP SP2
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bill 2005-05-31 09:21
ok, not nvidia. xfx
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bill 2005-05-31 10:36
I just bought an FX5200 PCI and a xfx 6600Gt and placing a call to the support department at XFX is worthless.
Some guy named Frank (who clearly doesn't like his job) tells me that after speaking with the nvidia engineers, nvidia software doesn't support more than two monitors, period.
I am basically being told that 3 monitor configurations are not allowed. This sounds like total nonsense to me, but I have nowhere else to turn.
Am I simply out of luck or just out of support for an XFX product?
I'm not trying to play games (too much), so I don't care so much about that, but does a three, nvidia based monitor setup work for windows by itself?
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Slaughterer 2005-05-31 13:36
I've posted my success story for Bill at the Nvidia forums here:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=5021
AGP 6800 + PCI 5200 = 3 monitors at 1280x1024 working GREAT.
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bill 2005-05-31 14:58
Slaughterer helped me on to a solution (If you're ever in Indy, I own a bar. Stop in, I owe you a couple of rounds.)
Anywho, it's working now, here's an update to the link:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=5021&st=0&p=35425&
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Slaughterer 2005-06-03 16:03
Bill, is it still working? The last post I saw at the nvidia site said it blew up. I posted more info over there for you.
For those of you just tuning in, that thread is at http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=5021
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Max 2005-06-07 18:34
Hello, is that your post that I see on the Nvidia forum ? you said everything works, can I kindly ask you your motherboard type and driver version ?
thank you
Max
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Slaughterer 2005-06-08 15:03
I am the same guy, and I'm happy to help. I presume you've read this thread already.
I have a BFGTech GeForce 6800 OC and e-GeForce FX 5200 on a MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R motherboard, with an Intel Pentium 4 2.80GHz 800FSB Prescott HyperThreading processor, and a pair of Corsair ValueSelect VS512MB400 512MB 400MHz DIMMs running dual-channel DDR, for a total of 1GB. My OS is Microsoft Windows XP Pro with SP2 and all the automatic updates.
My Nvidia (ForceWare) drivers are direct from Nvidia's website, not from the board manufacturers, and are version 71.89, released on April 14 and still the latest official public drivers, though there are newer unofficial ones out there.
My BIOS is set to initialize the PCI 5200 card first, but the monitor connected to the DVI port of the AGP 6800 card is set to primary in Windows. The moniker of "primary" doesn't seem to be all that important. It's just the monitor that Windows writes to if it has to choose only one (startup, shutdown, taskbar, alerts, etc.).
I'm not spanning anything. The Nvidia drivers won't span all three, so I have the 6800 card in Dualview mode and the system sees three separate displays.
Sometimes when the system starts up, it fails. It fails in a couple different places, and I think it's because one of the boards isn't initializing. I've found a reliable workaround. I always power up by pressing the power button (hard start), then wait a moment (I wait for the Promise controller message during startup) and press RESET (soft start). With this two-step startup, everything works every time.
If none of this helps you, let me know exactly what's happening and I'll try to help.
- Slaughterer
PS - I hope all these links work. There's no preview here.
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bill 2005-06-10 07:39
Nope, no longer working after a shutdown/restart.
Haven't tried the hard reset with the reset switch as suggested, but all the things I did to get it working don't seem to work anymore.
I am looking into Matrox products, but their support forms look loaded with oddball problems.
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Razza 2005-06-29 21:56
you know guys that if you use drivers 61.77 or lower you don't have to worry about any of these work arounds. Install the cards normally set agp to boot first and just install the nvidia drivers. AS LONG AS THEY ARE 61.77 OR LOWER!
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Deam 2005-07-05 14:38
I have a XFX 6600GT, PCI-E, and an e-vga PCI FX5200.
I had to set the mobo to use PCI first, and also had to either install the PCI card after the PCI-E card (physically), or disable the PCI card once it booted into windows, get the 6600 working, and then re-enable it.
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dead_smed 2005-07-06 01:40
I'm also having a similar problem with my setup
AGP - GeForce Ti 4600 DVIx1 screen
PCI - GeForce Fx 5200 VGAx2 screens
all works fine with the 61.77 driver but with anything newer windows just hangs on booting or hangs when trying to enable the other screens on the 5200 when booting with just the 4600 enabled. Yes i could just stick to the 61.77 but newer games like hl2 are asking for driver updates for improved performace :(
anyone got any ideas on a work around or away of contacting nvidia to let them know about this program that seesm to be effecting more and more multimonitor users?
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Deam 2005-07-07 12:46
to the above poster...do you have it to boot to PCI first?
Also, to anyone who has a setup like mine or the one in question: Have you been able to render OpenGL on the third monitor? I.e. when I open Folding@Home, or any windowed OpenGL application (such as winamp visualization), it will work on the monitors connected to the 6600GT in dual view, but, on the fx5200, the rending just stops.
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dead_smed 2005-07-08 03:48
My Bios is set to boot AGP first, not PCI
Would this make a difference tho? Out of personal preference I would prefer it to stay as AGP!
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Dusty 2005-07-08 08:00
I updated my drivers today and encountered the same problem. I am running 3 moniters on 2 cards. GeForce 5500 PCI and a GeForce 5200 AGP, both with dual heads. I updated the drivers around 10am this morning and was only able to get 2 moniters working at once. After fighting with it for almost 6 hours doing just about everything I could think of, I DL and installed the v61.77 drivers and IT WORKS!
Thanks Razzza, your a life saver.
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Chad 2005-07-22 10:51
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
i've never installed a 6600 but this is these are the steps you generally should follow.
1) for a card like the fx5200, you generally don't need to to set the bios to PCI first. set it back to AGP.
2) remove the pci card from the machine. if you can get the system to boot, delete the device from device manager
3) get the 6600 agp working...you should use the proper driver from nvidia's site. do NOT use the driver from the cd or from gainward's site. run the complete install...ie. run setup.exe and get the dual output working as desired.
4) once the agp is properly set up and only then, you can physically install the pci card and boot.
5) the os will detect a new adapter, see if you can point it to the same driver for the 6600. reboot after the install and check device manager to see if the pci is lumped in under "Display Adapters". if not, click on the device and click on "Update driver" under the driver tab. point it to the cd drivers (unpack them beforehand to a temp folder if they are in zip or exe format).
6) then use the windows display properties window to extend the desktop to the pci display.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Tantulus, I tried the above like you suggested but my system always locks up on me when i try to extend to a third monitor. I tried 2 different FX 5200s and a FX 5500.
Ive tried the latest Nvidia drivers and some as old as the 61.77s.
I have a BFG 6600GT and an Apollo FX 5200. Both cards work by themselves but not together when I try to span displays :(
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Deam 2005-07-24 03:45
With my PCI-E XFX 6600gt, and my PCI Evga fx5200 PCI, if I do not have it set to boot PCI first, it WILL lock up instantly upon initialization of the fx5200 on windows loading.
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