First post, by johnnycontrario
- Rank
- Newbie
I tried searching around for a solution to this issue, but I don't think I was using the right search terms.
I have a small form factor VIA C3 computer with VIA 8604+686B chipset and embedded S3 ProSavage IGP. It has 2 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot. The case can not accommodate ISA cards longer than 175mm, which means my options for sound cards are limited.
With real OPL3 in mind and good SB support, I went for one of those triangular AZT2320 ISA cards. It works great in DOS, but in Windows 98SE, the VGA signal disappears when exiting to DOS (Restart in MS-DOS mode), or when it should be displaying the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" message. I'm using an LCD monitor that has good 640x400 and 640x350 text mode support, so for all I know something is being displayed, but my monitor can't handle it.
Yet, when exiting to DOS, the computer is still alive. If I type 'exit' and hit enter, the display signal comes back, but only to a 640x400 text mode cursor blinking in the top left, and the Windows startup sound plays. The desktop UI never loads. After hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del several times to reboot, Windows initializes the display to the regular resolution (I have it set to 1024x768, 32bit), but it shows an error dialog before starting the desktop: "There is a problem with your display settings. The adapter type is incorrect, or the current settings do not work with your hardware." I can click OK, and the click OK on the 'Display Properties' window without making any changes, and the desktop comes back to normal.
At first, I thought maybe there was a compatibility issue with the Aztech card. Before buying a different sound card, I decided to retest with an ISA ethernet card intended for a different project. The ISA ethernet card causes the same exact behavior. This ONLY happens when the ISA slot is populated. When the ISA slot is empty, the computer restarts in MS-DOS mode and exits to Windows normally and the shutdown message is displayed properly. There must be some kind of conflict between the PCI to ISA bridge and the graphics adapter, but after monkeying with it for a few weeks, I'm out of ideas.
Things I have tried so far:
Disabling 'TV out' in BIOS (it has an S-Video and RCA output)
Installing chipset and video drivers (issue was present on fresh Win98SE install and did not change after installing video & chipset drivers)
Setting Windows video mode to 640x480x16colors.
Using standard VGA driver.
Disabling the ISA device in device manager (I only care about ISA sound card in DOS, I can use a PCI or integrated for Windows sound)
Re-installing S3 driver while ISA card installed.
Disabling all embedded devices in BIOS (serial, LPT, sound, and ethernet)
Setting plug & play in BIOS to Auto ESCD instead of manually assigning which resources are plug & play.
Toggling video related settings in BIOS (One by one, and testing after each change.)
Toggling video BIOS shadowing.
These steps did not change the problem behavior at all. As you can probably tell, my troubleshooting has devolved into brute-force, monkeys-with-typewriters troubleshooting because I'm out of ideas.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how I can troubleshoot the problem?
