Forum problems

[Coosbaylumber]

I got a couple of basic problems with a new video card and a pooped out hard drive. Both are Windows related I think.

Can someone recomend a forum to resolve these hardware items, so I can get the computer going again? I used to go to Computing.Net, but they changed the whole appearance of the web site about two months ago, and now I cannot get anywhere in it, nor can see what I am writing often. Just gave up as many others did. They must have gotten tired of the sixty questions before posting.

I need a name or two for a web-forum place that can handle older Windows or DOS related set-ups on these hardware issures. Please cite a URL (other than Computing.Net related) if you know of one.




Wm.

[ReMark]

I used to be a member of a forum at Smart Computing. You can try there. www.smartcomputing.com (http://www.smartcomputing.com)

Did you try over at PC World?

What is this exact nature of the problem?

What version of Windows are we talking about?

What version of DOS? Are we working with autoexec.bat and config.sys files too?

Is it an IRQ conflict?

[mdbdesign]

Try to post detailed question here. We got members very skilled in every subject...
ReMark was first. I told you...

[Coosbaylumber]

Well, initially thing that bothers me right now is the video board. Per Windows settings, it will only permit me to see eight colors, anything higher than a pen 8 comes in using dots.

The Windows options box will only allow two or eight colors right now. I found a video board at swap meet this past weekend which was exactly the same as my older one, but cost only $3 for me. I inserted it, got same old eight colors. Tried to re-set it, nope. Tried using original CD-ROM set-up disk and it said OK, but the dialogue window says only 8 colors max. No idea as to why it will not accept 256 colors or Infinate colors as before.

Ever try to do and ACAD drawing and seeing dots? Is that cause of linetype or because of color chosen?

Wm.

[ReMark]

Eight colors was an early Windows standard.

It would really help me to have the answers to the questions I first asked.

What graphics card are you trying to use?

What kind of slot is it being inserted to on the motherboard (ISA or AGP)?

You do have the original CD with all the drivers on it, right?

[Coosbaylumber]

Mark.......



On end of board is written Diamond Multimedia. Backside is Viper V770 etc.

It fits into a special slot (without a note on original poop sheet) which looks to be a standard AGP slot.

The operating system is the basic Windows 98 and I have the original CD-ROM disk. It indicates to work on a number of different types of video boards.

In the eight color mode, I get the standard few Autocad arcs, lines, text to show up, but then a few are problems. These are the mentioned dotted lines. I don't know if the line is really dotted, or the color wrong. Using LIST will specify, but that gets to be too slow after a while.


Wm.

[Coosbaylumber]

Other situation is...

Have a "D" drive on the computer. Yep, a second hard drive, plus more. Got Autocad and other things located there. Situation being is that the D drive boots up just fine in the morning when temps are down low. Once the temps get up, like in Mid-morning, it will not take another Re-boot. Error messages. I figure it is about to poop out within the month.

To complicate amtters, the D: drive had been partitioned into four sections, of about 500 MB (or so) each. Thus I got a D drive, an E drive etc. D drive for the programs, and for E drive I have obsolete Autocad drawings stored there. On the other drives (like F), pictures etc.

I have yet another used hard drive in the closet, which is a bit smaller, but would like to make similar to the pooping out drive. Right now I do not use all of the available space on the secondary drive, only about 40-60% of it. I partitioned the second drive into four sections, and thus need to do this once again. I did it all here too. The way FDISK is set up now, it will only work on the drive it is upon, not any secondary drives connected in. I don't have any old notes, but tried to partition this secondary one with what I got. It took the biggie hard drive and made only one partition, of only 520 MB and asked if it wanted to divide it any further? In actually, I got 1000 plus MB of that heard drive still not touched.

Thre really isn't anything of the drive of value to me today, but how can I partition it into four sections?

Someone at Computing.net suggested at since simialr was similar, then try _____ software and connect the nearly pooped out hard drive into computer and the next new one and use some software to amke a duplicate. If any bugs are inside original pooping out head drive, unfortunately they too will transferr over. I thus would rather partition and transfer one by one old data to newer drive. That saves a bit of space, but moreover leaves the bug behind.

The problems with the video board mentioned above is more important, as right now having difficulty seeing the correct things.


Wm.

[ReMark]

OK...let's recap.

You're using Windows 98 and a pre-2000 version of AutoCAD (which release? 9? 14? Other?)
You have a Diamond Viper V770 graphics card.
You also have a hard drive you think is on the verge of failing and a spare hard drive you would like to replace it with.

Do I have this all right?

The spare hard drive, who's is it? Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Connor or other? What is the size of the hard drive in MBs?

[ReMark]

The Diamond Viper V770 graphics card does fit into an AGP slot. The card shipped with 32MBs of videoRAM and supports AGP2X and AGP4X. It is capable of 800x600 resolution at 32-bit. A Windows 9x (95 or 98) driver version 4.12.01.0368 would be recommended.

I would avoid booting up the old (existing) drive if at all possible. Do you have access to the Internet from another computer? If so, I would go to the website of the manufacturer for the replacement drive and download their drive setup utility and use that to format and partition the drive. This is by far the best and easiest way of setting up a hard drive. Although FDisk has its strengths I would forego it at this time.

Once the drive is formatted and partitioned then you can load Windows 98.

[ReMark]

What version of Windows 98 are you running? There were two:

June 15th, 1998 - Windows 98 (4.10.1998) and...

May 5th, 1999 - Windows 98 SE (4.10.2222 or 4.10.2222A).

I really hope it is Win98 SE as it was the better of the two. Perhaps one of the best releases of Windows there ever was.

[ReMark]

Is there any chance you have a Diamond Viper V770 Ultra? I guess there were two versions of the card.

You can download a driver for the V770 here:

http://members.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=6005

Click on the file name 7700401.exe (7.2MB). At the next screen click on Download this file by signing up for a free account.

Do you know how to install a video card driver?

[ReMark]

Coosbay: Making any progress?

[Coosbaylumber]

OK...let's recap.

You're using Windows 98 and a pre-2000 version of AutoCAD (which release? 9? 14? Other?)
You have a Diamond Viper V770 graphics card.
You also have a hard drive you think is on the verge of failing and a spare hard drive you would like to replace it with.

Do I have this all right?

The spare hard drive, who's is it? Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Connor or other? What is the size of the hard drive in MBs?



Mark....

The new ($3) video board is about 3/4" longer overall (maybe due to some design change as the chips at the end are tilted differently now), but that Viper still has three notches for slot dividers of the electrical tabs. It also fits into an AGP slot due to positon of the electrical tabs away from the external steel backing plate for the connector and cord. Not doubt to me it is set for working in a AGP slot, and seems to fit there only, and gives a few proper 16 bit mode signals to the monitor.

No matter what you referrence information may indicate, the board fits into an AGP slot. It sort of works within the slot good now, it just will not configure to the full range of available colors as mentioned.



As for the hard drive.

I have a Western Digital Caviar of 2100 MB installed, and is nearing poopout stage. Overall too big for what information is on the drive now.

I would like to replace it with a low hour Western Digital Caviar of 1624 MB capacity which has been stored in a closet for a couple of years now. Divide this older one into 3 or 4 partitions and connect in and use on same computer then. I will manually transferr information and files from the 2100 over to the smaller 1600.

I have gone to the W.D. web site recently, and they no longer provide information on either of the drives (nor anything within the Caviar series), they no longer provide software to partition or divide any hard drive they sell, and in one lump sum only support what they currently sell today. I have the (near useless) poop sheets telling how to mount a Caviar hard drive in to some desktop computer, but no bill of sale or anything else. The company has nothing to do with obsolete hard drives, for they are now in to some newer areas of information storage.

I found out years ago, that any hard drive works best if configured to run in a DOS computer, as can then be aynked out and inserted into another computer, without it creating any confusion at the BIOS level. Thus the partitions may be considered small, but they fit my file sizes and makes the whole drive easily interchangeable when required. The web-site USED to have some partitioning software available for downlaod, but only to clients and trained personel, not to the general public or consumer.



Wm.

[ReMark]

My search for information on your graphics card confirmed that indeed it is an AGP card as you have also stated. The early AGP were labeled 1X. Then came the 2X followed by the 4X. A motherboard with a AGP 4X slot would accept, recognize and run any of the three versions.

[ReMark]

Coosbay:

Your statement about Western Digital EIDE hard drives, specifically the Caviar series, is incorrect. Not only can you obtain installation directions, but you can also find diagnostic and drive setup tools (ex. - Data Lifeguard) at the Western Digital website. A simple search on the name of the drive is all it takes. Take a look at this link:

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/index.asp

[ReMark]

Data Lifeguard tools will set up your drive in any configuration you desire. However,
if you are more comfortable using FDisk then by all means go ahead and use it. After all, it's your computer. Just remember that when you relagate the old drive to the "second" or "slave" position to change the jumper at the back of the drive.

[ReMark]

Chipset feature for Diamond Viper V770:

http://www.thetechzone.com/reviews/video/v770_features.shtml

AGP 4X confirmed.

[ReMark]

PC World Community...link to:

http://forums.pcworld.com/index.jspa

[ReMark]

From the magazine PC Components Feb. 2007 Vol. 11 Issue 1 (pages 82-84) and the article Basic Troubleshooting - Graphics Cards:

"Solution 2: Resolve driver conflicts. Make sure you uninstall the old graphics card driver and configuration software before installing a new graphics card or the latest graphics driver for your existing card. Even if you already installed the new card or driver without uninstalling the old drivers, it’s best to download the latest driver for your new graphics card from the manufacturer’s Web site (if you haven’t already done so), uninstall the existing driver, and then reinstall the latest driver. Both Nvidia (www.nvidia.com (http://www.nvidia.com/)) and ATI (ati.amd.com) offer unified drivers that work for all graphics card models of the same series, such as GeForce and Radeon." </B>

[ReMark]

The Q&A Boards at Smart Computing can be found starting here:

http://www.smartcomputing.com/QABoard/QAMain.aspx?guid=A7F4ACC39791406E8D74C0952419BA75

[ReMark]

Getting Windows 98 to work with large hard drives:

http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php

If you do not use WD's Data Lifeguard Tools to partition and format your hard drive and you decide to go with Windows 98 FDisk then you will have to resort to using a dynamic drive overlay to get around the 504MB barrier (see also Interrupt13). WD previously used a program called EZ-Drive. This program was subsequently incorporated into Data Lifeguard Tools. Do you have a copy of EZ-Drive on hand?

[ReMark]

Video drivers are very important in Windows 98. If there is a problem it is most likely to be addressed by doing the following:

1) Check the drivers (are the lastest drivers installed?).
2) Check the physical installation (is it secure?).
3) Check for memory conflicts (sounds cards are major culprits).
4) Suspect memory managers if used (ex. - QEMM).
5) Check the system's CMOS setup (ex. - disable video RAM shadow).
6) Check compatibility between video card and motherboard.

[Coosbaylumber]

Much as I tried, kept coming up with same old color situation on the monitor. Even yesterday, it made "everything" look bad.

This morning I went and switched out the monitor with an older, smaller one. Came back in like I hadn't seen it in years. All colors report in now.

I think the older, bigger, monitor is slowly going bad. Usually, for me, they give an electrical snap, or jiggling lines, and then go out five days later. It may be just taking longer this time. Giving me a chance to see what looks funny before it is all gone. That makes for one thing solved.


But still got the hard drive situation to solve.


Wm.

[ReMark]

At this point all I can say now is good luck with the swap out. I hope all goes smoothly.