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View Full Version : Dual Monitors, Win2k, Windows Hangs on Boot


Omega
11-11-2001, 11:42 PM
Well, noted below is my entire system setup, FYI.
I put in my 2nd display adapter today (ATI 3d Rage II+ PCI) and booted up as normal. My BIOS told me that the card would be sharing an IRQ with my onboard Promise IDE controller, so I swapped the card into PCI 1 (from PCI 2, and no, I didn't hot-swap the card :P). I booted up normally again. I logged into Windows 2000 (SP2) as Administrator and after about 2 seconds the computer just hung. I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete and it just cleared the screen, but didn't bring up the Windows Security dialog. I restarted and booted into safe mode. Windows detected new hardware (the video card) and loaded the drivers for it. I figured that probably solved the problem and I restarted normally.

This time when I logged in the computer hung after about 2 seconds again, but with a dialog asking for driver location for my monitor on the 2nd display adapter (Sony Trinitron Multiscan 100sx 15"). I booted into safe mode and extracted the drivers to the appropriate location and booted regularily again. Now the computer just hung after about 2 seconds with no dialog onscreen.

I decided to change my default display adapter to PCI in my BIOS and then I booted into Windows normally. Once Windows got past the boot/loading screen and into the normal GUI, the display switched back to my AGP adapter, and hung like before when I tried to log in, so I booted into safe mode.

Windows booted perfectly into safe mode on my PCI display adapter, and I couldn't find any problems. I ran CHKDISK on boot the next time (because I'd previously had some problems with a few corrupt files, etc...), but it found no problems, so I booted normally, with the same result as before.

I switched my default display adapter back to AGP. I then disabled the PCI display adapter in safe mode just so I could boot my computer. The computer booted fine in regular mode. I tried to enable the PCI display adapter from within Windows and Windows proceeded to hang after about 2 seconds, but it had begun to load a new window with something like "Hardware Troubleshooting" in the title (the rest of the window didn't load).

I'm now running with the PCI adapter disabled so I can use my computer at all. I've considered pulling out my AGP card and trying to boot into Windows regularily with just the PCI card, but I don't have the time tonight.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be wrong, and/or how to fix it?

Thanks.

P.S. I checked ATI's web site for drivers and they just said to use the default Win2k drivers for my card.

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System Specs:

ASUS A7V
AMD 1 gHz Thunderbird, Socket A (not overclocked, with SK6-Pro HSF)
256 MB PC133 Cas2 SDRAM, 1 DIMM
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP (with IBM P70 17" @ 1280x960 32bit @ 75 hz)
ATI 3d Rage II+ PCI (with Sony MultiScan 100sx 15" 1280x1024 @ 60 hz maximum resolution)
Netgear FA311 10/100 PCI (disabled)
Telepath Internet 56k WinModem
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 X-Gamer

IBM Deskstar 75GXP, 30GB, ATA/100, Primary Master (boot disk)
Maxtor 5,400RPM, 8.4GB, ATA/66, Primary Master
Generic 50x CD-ROM, ATA/33, Primary Slave
Plextor 24/10/40 CD-R/RW, ATA/33, Secondary Master

300w PSU
Windows 2000 Professional SP2

wizbones
11-12-2001, 08:58 PM
When you first install the card can you get into windows? Or does it hang immediately?

If you can get into windows ensure both cards are set exactly the same as far as resolution, desktop etc.

My understanding with Win2k is that it doesn't support multiple or panning desktops but one desktop only, so you can't have different resolutions and like half the desktop on one monitor and the other on the other.

The OS can only access one Desktop per VGA core. This may or may not be your problem. But again I am only guessing here as I've not tried it myself.