Having some problems with multiple graphics cards in a system. Before you ask "why the hell do you have multiple cards in your system?", the answer is because I use 3 monitors. Excessive, yes, but it's the way I like to work. I use a standard AGP card with dual outs for the center and right monitors, and a generic PCI card to control the left monitor. I use this setup at work and at home and have had no problems, until now. A few days ago, my old AGP card (Gainward nVidia FX5900) bit the dust. Started drawing vertical lines through everything while booting up, then once in windows, things would start glitching and freezing, then lockup. The PCI card ( a PNY GeForce MX 4000) was fine. I picked up a PNY nVidia 6200 last night to replace the Gainward, and although it worked fine by itself, it would not work if the PCI card was also installed. I returned it for an nVidia 6600 this morning, and finally a Leadtek 6800GT tonight. No go. In all cases, I get the same result... if the PCI card is installed, the AGP card has a warning in Device Manager: "This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use (Code 12) If you want to use this device you will need to disable one of the other devices on this system." I uninstalled every other peripheral in my system as a test, but it's got to be a conflict between the cards. The PCI card is fine by itself, and the AGP card is fine by itself, but they won't work together, despite the fact that this same system had both working together previously. I have tried setting IRQ's manually, tried different PCI slots, and everything else I could think of. My BIOS is set to recognize the AGP slot before the PCI slot. If I disable the PCI card in Device Manager, the AGP card works, but only in 4 bit depth! Even then the AGP card complains about not having enough resources. Any ideas what's going on here? More info: MB: ABIT IC7-G 2.6 GHz P4 2 gigs RAM Win XP Pro SP2 Any help appreciated! :good: -Eric Gooch www.cybergooch.com
Hmmm, we'll they have Matrox cards (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814106154) with triple head capabilities for three monitors.
@ninja fetus...that's one option, but I'd like to upgrade the card a bit if I could. More importantly, I'd like to figure out what's going on if the problem occurs again in the future. @Exfoliate...the Matrox cards haven't sounded very powerful in the openGL area, and have gotten some reviews from people that have been less than impressed with the way it spans monitors. I'm still testing different hardware to see if I can pin it down.
These cards are not designed to work that way. It was chance that it worked in the first place. There is a conflict between cards. It is the same as if you put in a video card and don't disable on board video. Bottom line: shouldn't work with any card, but getting the same card you had is a lateral move. So get the card you had, go with 2 monitors, or get the Matrox Ex suggested.
Yeah I personally wouldn't bother with Matrox, if you want workstation class go with FireGL or something. But from the sound of it you prefer the old fashioned gaming cards which is cool. All I can figure is since you picked out modern 6 series cards they don't appreciate the PCI card being installed along with it and you have probs. Perhaps a driver update but they usually doesn't solve this sort of prob.
maybe its conflicting with the older card... the 5900 and mx4000 are closer in range as far as time built.. 6600 might just be to much of a performance gap between the two. maybe getting dual cards that are the same model. im no video card wiz but just a thought.
That's not true max12590. There's plenty of Microsoft documentation about using PCI and AGP cards together in the same system and what steps need to be taken to make sure things go smoothly. The main thing is you have to make sure your BIOS is set to recognize AGP before PCI to get both to work.
The only problem with going TOO workstation is that game performance will have problems. I'm trying to walk the fine line because I do both games and CG.
Well, that's the problem...nobody is making cards that do both games and high-end 3D graphics really well. If you go for a great game card, they frequently have problems with things like overlay planes and refreshing the screen properly when certain geometry changes are made while modeling...if you go for a highend 3D card like a quaddro or a fireGL, they can have problems with some aspects of direct3D. I have had pretty good luck with nVidia cards (the FX5900 was fairly good at both but was no speed demon compared to either the fastest game cards or the more powerful workstation cards.)
Just wanted to post an update that I've solved the problem, and how. After trying numerous card combinations and having the same results, I figured it couldn't be the video cards themselves. I pulled all components and went into the bios and disabled EVERYTHING. 2nd IDE channel, FDD, Firewire, USB controller, and left nothing active but the boot drive, the mouse, the keyboard, and both graphics cards. After rebooting, success! Both cards were working. I slowly enabled items in the BIOS, and added the peripherals back in. As it stands now, I am back in business except for firewire. Everything else has been enabled without conflicts. I am going to leave it at this for now, as the only thing I used firewire for was my external backup drive, and it's got USB 2.0 as well, so I'll use that instead. I also had to leave out my old sound card, but I've enabled the onboard audio instead...nothing fancy, but it works. Thanks for the suggestions!
