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OK, I formatted one of my machines here at work and after I reinstalled Win 98se, the video card isn't working right.

It is a Dell Optiplex,(which means it has a crappy video port right on the board) with an additional 16 mb video card. I have the monitor plugged into the 16 mb card.

When windows starts up, it is using the standard VGA driver which only gets me 16 colors and 640x480 display. Under the system displays, the ATI Rage Pro card has a yellow 'i' on it. I have removed both in the control panel/system/hardware and rebooted. It keeps finding both cards and using the driver for the other.

It doesn't give me the pull down to select the other card, probably because of the 'i'

I have installed the newest ATI drivers from their site, and updated drivers at the Windows update site. Currently it is using the ATI driver, yet neither work.

Any suggestions? I tried abandoning the 16 mb card by removing it and using the built in video, but that only gets me 256 color and it looks terrible.

Help???

There should be a motherboard jumper or CMOS Setup setting to disable the onboard video chip. If you can't find it, please provide all label data on the computer. Larry

Larry,
In my Bios (version A04) I don't have an optionto disable the onboard chip. Is it possible to load a new bios on that will?
CMOS isn't on if it runs Bios, right?

The motherboard doesn't have too much info on it, just a few stickers with long strings of numbers.
The computer is weird, all the PCI and card slots are on a separate pull out board that plugs into a slot on the motherboard.

>CMOS isn't on if it runs Bios, right?

No. You are confusing the CMOS with the BIOS. The CMOS (http://duxcw.com/faq/cmos/cmos.htm) is a low-power memory chip that contains configuration and clock data used by the BIOS. It is always on and kept that way with a battery. The BIOS is a very low level program that is stored on a Flash memory chip in recent computers and in a ROM chip(s) on older computers. It comes on when the computer is turned on it initializes the computer and reads the stuff in the CMOS. This is known as a post, post routine, bootstrap, or cold boot (actually, starting the operating system from disk, which it does, is the boot).

>The computer is weird, all the PCI and card slots are on a separate pull out board that plugs into a slot on the motherboard.

That's not all that unusual. It's called a riser card and is employed in quite a few low-profile desktops.

There should be model number on a manufacturer's label on or in the computer. It's probably on the back or bottom of that computer. Larry

How do I gt into the CMOS to edit it?
Do I go in thru the BIOS? because I couldn't find it there.

If it says BIOS setup or CMOS Setup, it is actually the CMOS that you are changing. Larry

When I use the built in port (with the card removed), I can at least change the 640x480 settings to whatever I want.
Just when I go to use the card, I have no ability to change the settings.

OK, I got it working.
Here's what got me thinking.

When I had the card out, it was using the ATI Rage Pro Driver, which I was assuming was the card. When I put the card in it used a Generic driver, which I was confusing with the chip on the board. This is why I was getting better graphics out of the built in than the upgrade.

So 2 days ago I was trying to get around Dell's site, and they were telling me my computer code number was invalid, which I assumed meant the machine was too old to be in their system, since it is a PII-450 and 3 years old.
After going back and trying today, it pulled my machine right up and gave me a few choices of video cards. The STB was the right one.

It's up and running to peak performance right now.

Larry,
Thanks for all your help again.
Tim

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