New Video Card Causes Eye Strain

I mentioned that I have a new MSI motherboard with an ATI card. It is having a resource problem with the onboard ethernet. I was wondering if yours may be having similar problems, especially when you said it would not run with fail-safe default settings. You will probably need to set Fail-Safe Defaults for the new BIOS to take effect.

I have had to disable the onboard ethernet. I suggest you try that too and even the audio. Reboot and try running the fail-safe settings. Once it accepts the fail-safe settings change to Optimised Defaults. Then see how the graphics run. Reenable the audio then the ethernet, testing in between.

Matt

 

No go.

I disabled sound in the device manager (Ethernet was already disabled), plus I decided to clear the CMOS jumper at shutdown too. POST screen said that defaults were enabled, but I could not get Windows to boot. I had re-enable "Optimized Settings" in the BIOS to get windows started again.

System File Checker is loading at startup too, but it will not work properly for some reason. It asks for the XP CD, even though I have copied the I386 folder to C drive, plus I have changed the source path in the registry to C:\I386. What's even weirder, is that I can click "Retry" and the progress line resumes, up until a certain point. But then it will ask for the CD again, and no matter how many times I click "Retry ", SFC will not budge until I click cancel.

I'm wondering if I am looking at a repair install in order to fix things.

 

Hi Pete,

My reg settings are not the same as yours. The lower setting matches mine, but you have one more line than me.

My upper line is: ServicePackSourcePath.....REG_SZ..... c:\windows\ServicePackFiles

I have no:
ServicePackCachePack.....REG_SZ..... C:\windows\ServicePackFiles\ServicePackCache

I presume you are at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup?

P. S. Pardon the spa ces...I don't how they got in there.

 

I changed the other reg key to C:\ , but now SFC is asking for the XP CD w/ Service Pack 2. I never had a Windows CD of that type, except for a slipstream disk that I made.

So I tried to copy the files from the slipstream CD's I386 folder to the one I already had on C drive, but it did not help either. I'm thinking that maybe there is a file missing that I don't seem to have on hand?....Not sure though.


Edit: One thing I forgot to mention, is that I used a program called Driver Cleaner Pro a few days ago to remove all traces of previous video drivers before installing new video drivers. This was done in safe mode, and DC Pro had another option to remove .cab files too. It must have taken a good 5 minutes or more to finish cleaning out .cab files. I'm wondering if that might be part of the problem with SFC?

 

Sorry James, I meant to say disable the Ethernet (LAN) and Audio in the BIOS settings. They are on page 3-17 of the motherboard manual (in the Intergrated Periferals menu). The manual says the ethernet/LAN is optional, but is seems like yours has it onboard.

Finding why Fail-Safe Defaults won't work is important I think. On mine, I cannot boot into Windows with the Ethernet drivers installed, it just reboots into Safe Mode.

If you find the ethernet is causing a resource conflict with the ATI card, you could install a PCI Ethernet card, that's what I am going to try. If that does not work for me, I am going to try my Nvidia graphics card. Let me know if you want me to report my findings (I may as well try after this internet session).

Matt

 

Sorry so late posting back...I never got an e-mailer for some reason.

I decided to return the graphics card for now, but I will try another one later on sometime. I stopped the SFC tool from loading at reboot by typing in sfc /revert. I may be looking at a repair install to fix sfc's problems though.

Sure, I'd be glad to hear the results Mattman.

 

Hi James,
I disabled the onboard ethernet in the BIOS, put in a NIC, installed the drivers...sweet as... Everything running fine.

It was a resource conflict between the ethernet and the ATI card in my opinion. I was not going to try shuffling resource settings in the BIOS, if the battery goes flat or you need to reset the settings, you have to start all over again. I would suggest that you look at disabling the onboard ethernet if you find problems trying to install another graphics card (although, as I said, don't rule out a conflict with the onboard audio).

Hope you have more success on your next attempt

Matt

 

Almost forgot...

I am running a program called Weather Pulse that caused the font changes. They have released a program update that fixed that.