Everyone's Favorite: PC hardware compatibility question

Gah! It’s been two months now after I dropped my PC, and after replacing the MB/CPU/cdrw/HD, now I seem to have an incompatible video card…

Can someone tell me if a 64MB DDR Radeon card is compatible with a Socket 478 P4 2.5GHz MB/CPU? My monitor says “no signal” when I turn my PC on.

Is there a site that one could use to find compatibility charts? There should be…

What is the motherboard’s brand and model? Most manufacturers list compatible video cards on their websites.

Every VGA video card in the known universe can handle a text-mode signal (such as the one you get at power-up that says things like “hit del to enter BIOS setup”) from any motherboard that has the proper type of slot for it (AGP, PCI, etc). Are you getting any beep-codes?

-lv

I’m not sure what brand this mb is, I got it as a mb/cpu combo from pricewatch.com. Here’s a page that shows the motherboard:

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/p4vxasd2_v5_plus.html

No beep codes, everything seems fine, except my monitor doesn’t get a signal.

after looking at the manual, I think it’s a VIA board.

Do you have speakers plugged in to the audio out port? Some MBs with integrated sound actually use that for beep codes (or even voice messages) instead of the internal speaker.

Basically, you shouldn’t even get a “no signal” message on your moniter with the PC turned off, as long as all connections are made property, unless something is seriously wrong.

-lv

My speaker plugs are connected to the sound card, so that shouldn’t be an issue. When I get home I’ll mess with it some more - it’s probably something I’m overlooking. Don’t know what, though. Thanks for the help

Wasn’t there a AGP voltage “problem” or something different with P4 boards and “older” video cards?

Is [url=http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html]this[/ur] what you’re talking about, bernse? The site says the following ATI cards should work with newer motherboards:

Since the OP said he has a Radeon with 64MB DDR, I’m assuming his is one of these models.

I had a friend with the same problem as the OP (including the "No Signal message when it was connected), also with a brand new video card and mobo in a system he was building himself. He tried everything he could think of. He had me look at it. He took it into school and had a computer instructor look at it.
He tried other video cards on his board and got the same error. He tried putting his new video card on my motherboard and it worked. He decided that something must have been seriously wrong with the motherboard and was able to get a refund.

Fixed link to page about the AGP voltage issues.

Maybe… I dunno

:slight_smile:

That’s not entirely true. On my system (which works fine), I can get a ‘no signal’ message with everything connected (power and video signal). Though only after unplugging something or another’s power cord or other unusual circumstances, and only until the computer is turned on. But it is possible, so don’t trash your MB or card just because you have gotten a ‘no signal’ message.

If the power supply doesn’t put out enough voltage you can get lights on & the HD light on, etc, but so picture… happened to me two times & I had to put in a new power supply.

another thing is that the bios might think you have another type of video card in there, did you try to clear the bios settings? like see if it has a safe boot mode?