Does the BIOS have an option to disable the integrated GPU? If so, does any of your cards work then?

Do the cards work in a board with no integrated GPU? If not, you may be unlucky and only have dead cards.

Additionally, does Windows detect the GPUs (in Device Manager) ?

BIOS is the key here. There might be even an option which is preffered GPU: integrated, PCI or AGP slot. Just check that and it will work for sure.

I've tried setting the BIOS to boot using the AGP slot when I tried the AGP card, and set it to PCI when using the PCI card. There's no option for internal GPU. With any card installed, and the VGA cable plugged into the motherboard, the PC doesn't seem to detect any of the GPUs when I boot it up.

One of the cards was taken from an old working system that died (Dell with a proprietary power supply, so instead of hunting for one of those, it was cheaper to get a new motherboard and use one of my existing newer power supplies).

I know the PCI slots aren't dead because I've tried using my sound card in every slot just to verify that it worked.

I was just wondering if there is some option to like force the system to detect the GPU, or something like that. Because right now it doesn't seem to even notice it exists.

One of the motherboards I tried I think has a dead AGP slot (1 long, 2 short beeps whenever I try) and the other mobo only has PCI slots. I have 2 PCI and 2 AGP cards. I guess it's possible and every card I have is either dead or incompatible, but I wish I could at least get it to post with the card so I could troubleshoot drivers or something.

What model is the motherboard?

One is an Asus P2B-VX (440bx chipset) and the other is an Asus P3W (810 chipset)

Do you mean Asus P2B98-XV ?? Isn't That an OEM board ? The P3W in the bios has an Enable/disable for onboard video, that leaves PCI only so I would try the first slot closest to cpu....
Both boards are not really the best for vintage tinkering....IMHO

Yeah, they're just what I have. Now every card is giving me the 3 beeps in every slot. Who knows. I'll just probably stick with what's working and eventually get a better mobo. I'm not too concerned since the whole plan was is not the best graphics, since I can just run that stuff in my other computer. There's a certain charm to software rendering anyway 😆 I'm mostly just curious as to why this stuff isn't working. Like, the old Dell I had that died originally had a crappy ATI Rage card in it, and I upgraded to a GeForce 2 MX and everything was fine. Neither of those cards will work in this board or the PCI ATI Rage 128 I found.

This is odd. There are two usual reasons why cards don't work and neither seems to apply here. Still, you're very vague about which cards you are actually using, so it's hard to rule anything out. Could you confirm exact brand & model of the "crappy ATi Rage card", "Geforce2 MX" and "PCI ATI Rage 128", in particular whether the cards with ATi chips are ATi made from 1990s (ATi logo on card as well as chip) or much newer using NOS ATi chips? And confirm which cards are PCI and which AGP.

One reason a card might not work is if it's a new 3.3V only PCI card in an old 5V only slot. Normally that wouldn't be a problem with Rage era cards but some newly produced ones (noname eBay from China stuff) can suffer this.

Then there's the VGA initialization thing. BIOS initializes either PCI or AGP first (and on PCI goes for the first VGA it encounters). Some cards only work at all if initialized first, but something like a GeForce2MX will happily be available for your OS even if another adapter (integrated - AGP - i810 or onboard - PCI - Rage) is initialized before it. With the i810 a PCI GeForce2MX should always work (BIOS setting: Init PCI first), with the board with onboard PCI VGA, it is possible that you can only get an AGP adapter to work (BIOS seting: init AGP first) if the onboard PCI is initialized before any other PCI adapter, and your PCI cards don't like not being initialized forst.

Please take a photo of that P2B98-XV (apparently the AGP version, other known variants: 1, 2).

KingDavid73 wrote on 2023-10-17, 05:33:

PCI ATI Rage 128

Please post photos of cards you are testing. As mentioned above, modern aliexpress junk can have hit and miss PCI support even if based on Rage XL legacy.
You may want to update your P3W BIOS.