another second video card problem thread

bkohler81 · 11-20-2008, 05:57 PM

okay... so I know this has been dealt with several times on here and many other sites. I PROMISE you guys that I searched around for the past three days to find assistance. This is my last resort... I need HELP!

I have an HP Pavillion desktop
AMD Athlon 64x2 dual core 4200+ 2.19ghz 1 GB RAM
MS XP Media Center SP3
about 3 years old, has an AGP ATI Radeon X300 Series video card
card only has one vga and an s-video
I wanted to run dual monitors so I picked up a cheap-o S3 trio 64V2 pci card that gave me an additional vga slot for an extra monitor

The pc store guy told me to install the card, boot up and windows will recognize the card and install the driver's automatically. I did this the boot screen and BIOS screen showed up on secondary monitor immediately, then after a few seconds switched back to my primary and booted up just fine. I watched as the driver's installed and went in to configure the dual monitor setup. Everything worked fine. I had both displays running perfect. Well I re-booted the computer, and entered an endless cycle of "boot screens > reboot" over and over. Finally I manually shut it down, restarted and got it to boot into safe mode. I couldn't figure out what to do at that point so I tried to re-boot again. It booted and gave me the options "boot safe mode" or "last know good configuration". I booted up "last known..." and it worked sans secondary monitor. I'm afraid to reboot at this point because I don't want it to not start up.

OH YEAH, I went thru this same cycle a few days ago where I changed something in the BIOS and could never get my comp to boot up. I ended up having to pull the battery to the mobo to reset the bios and had to reinstall windows. SO NEEDLESS TO SAY... im a little nervous at this point.

So here I am, computer booted. Both cards installed. Drivers for both installed. only primary monitor on... someone please HELP!

Thank you

Bret

**Doby** · 11-20-2008, 06:16 PM

Trying to run dual monitors with a pci card is hit or miss, if you were running a ati card that uses the same drive as the X300 you may get it to work.
Whats happening is you have a driver conflict with the two different cards causing windows to blue screen, remove the drivers for the card power down and remove the card.

I don't know of a way to get that to work, maybe someone else will but I doubt it.

You would be better off finding a card with a vga and dvi output and running dual monitors that way, you can find some cheaper cards to do this

bkohler81 · 11-20-2008, 09:39 PM

Thanks for taking the time to answer this. I had only bought the cheap-o card because i don't really have the money to splurge on a replacement card. But i understand that nothing can be done. Thanks for your input. Back to the store and save up for a better agp card i suppose.

11-20-2008, 05:57 PM	#1 (permalink)
bkohler81 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 2 OS: win xp sp3	another second video card problem thread okay... so I know this has been dealt with several times on here and many other sites. I PROMISE you guys that I searched around for the past three days to find assistance. This is my last resort... I need HELP! I have an HP Pavillion desktop AMD Athlon 64x2 dual core 4200+ 2.19ghz 1 GB RAM MS XP Media Center SP3 about 3 years old, has an AGP ATI Radeon X300 Series video card card only has one vga and an s-video I wanted to run dual monitors so I picked up a cheap-o S3 trio 64V2 pci card that gave me an additional vga slot for an extra monitor The pc store guy told me to install the card, boot up and windows will recognize the card and install the driver's automatically. I did this the boot screen and BIOS screen showed up on secondary monitor immediately, then after a few seconds switched back to my primary and booted up just fine. I watched as the driver's installed and went in to configure the dual monitor setup. Everything worked fine. I had both displays running perfect. Well I re-booted the computer, and entered an endless cycle of "boot screens > reboot" over and over. Finally I manually shut it down, restarted and got it to boot into safe mode. I couldn't figure out what to do at that point so I tried to re-boot again. It booted and gave me the options "boot safe mode" or "last know good configuration". I booted up "last known..." and it worked sans secondary monitor. I'm afraid to reboot at this point because I don't want it to not start up. OH YEAH, I went thru this same cycle a few days ago where I changed something in the BIOS and could never get my comp to boot up. I ended up having to pull the battery to the mobo to reset the bios and had to reinstall windows. SO NEEDLESS TO SAY... im a little nervous at this point. So here I am, computer booted. Both cards installed. Drivers for both installed. only primary monitor on... someone please HELP! Thank you Bret

11-20-2008, 06:16 PM	#2 (permalink)
Doby Moderator Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Central PA (USA) Posts: 8,057 OS: XP sp2/ Vista My System	Re: another second video card problem thread Trying to run dual monitors with a pci card is hit or miss, if you were running a ati card that uses the same drive as the X300 you may get it to work. Whats happening is you have a driver conflict with the two different cards causing windows to blue screen, remove the drivers for the card power down and remove the card. I don't know of a way to get that to work, maybe someone else will but I doubt it. You would be better off finding a card with a vga and dvi output and running dual monitors that way, you can find some cheaper cards to do this __________________ Would you like to help TSF fight cancer and other diseases??? JOIN TEAM TSF

11-20-2008, 09:39 PM	#3 (permalink)
bkohler81 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 2 OS: win xp sp3	Re: another second video card problem thread Thanks for taking the time to answer this. I had only bought the cheap-o card because i don't really have the money to splurge on a replacement card. But i understand that nothing can be done. Thanks for your input. Back to the store and save up for a better agp card i suppose.