Unusual Video Card Probs with XP

My friend has a:

Pent II 500
512 MB PC133 RAM
8 GB HD (master)
40 GB HD (slave)
SB Live 5.1 Gamer
On-board Intel Video Chipset

I've been trying to help him install a 3D video card on his system and nothing is working out. The card installs fine with the drivers and everything, but if we open up any type of media file that is a movie file (.mov, .mpg, .wmv) the system comes to a complete halt and a high-pitched "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" sound comes through the speakers forcing you to reboot and run scandisk.

I've tried 3, yes that's right... 3 different video cards. We've tried a Voodoo 3 3500, ATI Radeon 7000, and just tonight tried a VisionTek nVidia GeForce 2 MX 200 32MB, and still get the same results. Any time we open up a game and there's a cinematic sequence showing, does the high-pitched sound and complete stops the system.

Also, ever since you install a 3D card in the system, he can no load up a CD to install something. You can double-click on it, but the system just hangs there with an hourglass. Then we go to the Task Manager and it says the computer is at 100% CPU Usage. Then I click on the Processes tab and several apps are moving up and down on the list. Then when you try to shut it down, it says a .dll error with a certain file. Then it came up with a "Guru Meditiation Failure". I was like.. What?!?! So we ran a scan on the drives for viruses, nothing found.

So then we pulled out the card and used the cheapy, worthless Intel embedded chip and have no problems.

I told him to reformat the drive and do a clean install or use Windows98SE, but he's not able to due to some "circumstances" from mom! lol.. Anyways...

What would cause these types of problems? (we used updated drivers and got the same results) Thanks in advance for some feedback!

Kevin "Hykster" Hyk

Did you go into Device Manager and disable the cheapy, worthless Intel embedded chip before installing the other video cards?

Yes of course! It was the only way to get the motherboard to use the other card in order to see anything on screen.

Take a look at this: http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_771.htm
You might have a minor virus

Thanks Sampson. I guess my friend does have a virus. Kinda weird because we updated his McAfee Virus Scanner and it never found anything, but then again, I never set it to do a Surface scan, just to check all files. I'll make sure I do that tonight for him and find it and hopefully get rid of it.

Thanks again! You guys are a great help on the forum!

HAve you thoughourly tested the power supply in the system. It sounds to me like you've finnaly crossed the line on the maximum wattage of the PSU (power supply unit).

This also explains the CD ROM issues. If the CD ROM is trying to initialise, and there is not enough power the system will sit there waiting for the CD.

In my experience the beeping your hearing is always the result of a power shortage on the motherboard. This has happened to me resently when the power cable to my PSU was not making a 100% connection..In my case it was just a matter of making sure the cable was firmly in the back of the tower, but to me this sounds like with all the CD, HDD and devices in the machine, you're simmply using more power then the PSU has to give.

My guess is that the video card is using some form of APM and its not until you go to access some of the specific hardware on the card that its sucks more power then you have. Or possibly its not the Video card at all, but when veiw media files, the SOUND CARD (SB Live!) is sucking more then ussual (to intiate all those cool SB Live! features).

I'd get a bigger PSU and give it a go...but if its a HP, or comapaq or other prebuilt machine, make sure you check that the stuff they use can handle it...My mate had a HP pavilion 8600 (with a pathetic 185W PSU and he discovered that if he DID upgrade the PSU, there was a VERY high chance he would kill his mobo - who knows how THAT works??)

I hope this helps...let us know?

I used to have an AMD k6-2 300 CPU. It worked fine until I've tried to use any MM features (like Games Musik etc.) Then I just saw trash on the monitor, and my System said goodby till the next reboot.

The problem was the CPU. It had kind a damage that lead to the problem. Perhaps this is also your friends problem.

I helped install a new 300 watt max power supply on this Gateway system and took out the original 80 watt max power supply. Well, the same problem happens. A constant high pitch beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep is heard through the speakers and the system comes to a complete halt. His other "video card" is embedded onto the motherboard, but I have that disabled through the Device Manager. These problems only seem to happen when we install any type of 3D Video Card. Thanks for helping though. We are both quite confused and frustrated.

get it running with the onboard graphics, then in Device Manager uninstall the onboard graphics [not just disable it], then shutdown the computer & turn off the power. Put the new graphics card in [but keep monitor attached to onboard graphics]. Turn PC on, but don't let it go into windows, instead go into the BIOS setup. Disable the onboard video. If the card is AGP instead of PCI then look for an option that is called something like "init display first" & set it to AGP. Save these settings & exit the BIOS setup, & then plug the monitor into the graphics card. Hopefully that should sort it.

Since it is a Gateway machine, and admittedly they don't change their bios all that frequently, you should check to see if there is an upgrade. Gateway and Dell sometimes play fast and loose with their machines since their presumption is that you won't be upgrading but will keep it as is for the duration of its life expectancy.