Do they have VGA ? and if so do they display it fine via that connection ?

I have noticed earlier when testing my GPU collection the DVI based cards either didn't display their post before the PC got to its bios post or they did but it was for a very short period, far shorter than a VGA based post.

Its possible DVI has a small display latency to it during post.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:41:

Do they have VGA ? and if so do they display it fine via that connection ?

yes

Na man, you aren’t getting it, I don’t get anything till windows desktop loads with dvi on the ti500, and I haven’t gotten anything at all from the mx400 but I assume windows just needs drivers.

I had to take a motherboard and psu into the other room to test vga 🤣. Nothing where I run my computers uses vga

I had an ATI 9000 AGP card that would never display anything before the splash screen when you used the DVI port, but it was the only card I've ever had that did that. It was an annoying quirk, but not enough of an issue for me to try and find a way to fix it; my assumption would be that it would take flashing the card's BIOS to solve it.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:42:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:41:

Do they have VGA ? and if so do they display it fine via that connection ?

yes

Na man, you aren’t getting it, I don’t get anything till windows desktop loads. On the ti500 and I haven’t gotten anything at all from the mx400 but I assume windows just needs drivers.

oh, thats .. weird, I mean I have seen that before but even then it was weird, its not a GPU issue since when I moved the GPU to another PC it worked fine.

I'm guessing you have tried different DIV-D/DVI cables ? and a different display ?

Is it specifically them two GPUs ?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:49:

oh, thats .. weird, I mean I have seen that before but even then it was weird, its not a GPU issue since when I moved the GPU to […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:42:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:41:

Do they have VGA ? and if so do they display it fine via that connection ?

yes

Na man, you aren’t getting it, I don’t get anything till windows desktop loads. On the ti500 and I haven’t gotten anything at all from the mx400 but I assume windows just needs drivers.

oh, thats .. weird, I mean I have seen that before but even then it was weird, its not a GPU issue since when I moved the GPU to another PC it worked fine.

I'm guessing you have tried different DIV-D/DVI cables ? and a different display ?

Is it specifically them two GPUs ?

It’s a hdmi to dvi cable that works fine on 9800 pro and radeon 7500 I have two of them and both do the same thing

Edited previous reply

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:51:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:49:

oh, thats .. weird, I mean I have seen that before but even then it was weird, its not a GPU issue since when I moved the GPU to […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:42:

yes

Na man, you aren’t getting it, I don’t get anything till windows desktop loads. On the ti500 and I haven’t gotten anything at all from the mx400 but I assume windows just needs drivers.

oh, thats .. weird, I mean I have seen that before but even then it was weird, its not a GPU issue since when I moved the GPU to another PC it worked fine.

I'm guessing you have tried different DIV-D/DVI cables ? and a different display ?

Is it specifically them two GPUs ?

It’s a hdmi to dvi cable that works fine on 9800 pro and radeon 7500 I have two of them and both do the same thing

Edited previous reply

This might sound odd but have you tried a DVI > DVI cable with a display that has DVI ?

Its possible that the two GPUs here are old enough that they have some incompatibilities with the whole DVI > HDMI conversion, could be a weird video text 80 mode the GPUs are using at post that the DVI > HDMI conversion doesnt like and its not till windows loads and switches to a valid display resolution that the cable works correctly and can output a display.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:55:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:51:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:49:

oh, thats .. weird, I mean I have seen that before but even then it was weird, its not a GPU issue since when I moved the GPU to another PC it worked fine.

I'm guessing you have tried different DIV-D/DVI cables ? and a different display ?

Is it specifically them two GPUs ?

It’s a hdmi to dvi cable that works fine on 9800 pro and radeon 7500 I have two of them and both do the same thing

Edited previous reply

This might sound odd but have you tried a DVI > DVI cable with a display that has DVI ?

Its possible that the two GPUs here are old enough that they have some incompatibilities with the whole DVI > HDMI conversion, could be a weird video text 80 mode the GPUs are using at post that the DVI > HDMI conversion doesnt like and its not till windows loads and switches to a valid display resolution that the cable works correctly and can output a display.

🤔 I don’t have a display to try that on. Interesting thought.

If it is that, would that be easier to solve?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 09:17:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:55:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:51:

It’s a hdmi to dvi cable that works fine on 9800 pro and radeon 7500 I have two of them and both do the same thing

Edited previous reply

This might sound odd but have you tried a DVI > DVI cable with a display that has DVI ?

Its possible that the two GPUs here are old enough that they have some incompatibilities with the whole DVI > HDMI conversion, could be a weird video text 80 mode the GPUs are using at post that the DVI > HDMI conversion doesnt like and its not till windows loads and switches to a valid display resolution that the cable works correctly and can output a display.

🤔 I don’t have a display to try that on. Interesting thought.

If it is that, would that be easier to solve?

Well I mean its pretty easy to solve if you have a display with DVI input 🤣 but otherwise you might want to grab a few different DVI > HDMI cables and see if its not the cable itself, if the cable is fine then it gets progressively harder to solve.

I guess your other option is to use a GPU you know works fine with the setup you are using, it would be the easiest solution and cheapest too if you dont want to throw a little cash at the issue with a few extra cables.

There are a couple of other ways around it but again it depends on how much effort you want to expend on it.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 09:35:

Well I mean its pretty easy to solve if you have a display with DVI input lol but otherwise you might want to grab a few differe […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 09:17:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 06:55:

This might sound odd but have you tried a DVI > DVI cable with a display that has DVI ?

Its possible that the two GPUs here are old enough that they have some incompatibilities with the whole DVI > HDMI conversion, could be a weird video text 80 mode the GPUs are using at post that the DVI > HDMI conversion doesnt like and its not till windows loads and switches to a valid display resolution that the cable works correctly and can output a display.

🤔 I don’t have a display to try that on. Interesting thought.

If it is that, would that be easier to solve?

Well I mean its pretty easy to solve if you have a display with DVI input 🤣 but otherwise you might want to grab a few different DVI > HDMI cables and see if its not the cable itself, if the cable is fine then it gets progressively harder to solve.

I guess your other option is to use a GPU you know works fine with the setup you are using, it would be the easiest solution and cheapest too if you dont want to throw a little cash at the issue with a few extra cables.

There are a couple of other ways around it but again it depends on how much effort you want to expend on it.

I'm trying to replicate some good performance other users are reporting on k6 and p1 setups using these cards. so the cards I have are actually the fastest variants of that in pci and agp
my fallbacks are radeon 7500 and radeon 9800 pro which score like half of what these gf2/3 cards are getting in other people's benchmarks

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 10:14:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 09:35:

Well I mean its pretty easy to solve if you have a display with DVI input lol but otherwise you might want to grab a few differe […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 09:17:

🤔 I don’t have a display to try that on. Interesting thought.

If it is that, would that be easier to solve?

Well I mean its pretty easy to solve if you have a display with DVI input 🤣 but otherwise you might want to grab a few different DVI > HDMI cables and see if its not the cable itself, if the cable is fine then it gets progressively harder to solve.

I guess your other option is to use a GPU you know works fine with the setup you are using, it would be the easiest solution and cheapest too if you dont want to throw a little cash at the issue with a few extra cables.

There are a couple of other ways around it but again it depends on how much effort you want to expend on it.

I'm trying to replicate some good performance other users are reporting on k6 and p1 setups using these cards. so the cards I have are actually the fastest variants of that in pci and agp
my fallbacks are radeon 7500 and radeon 9800 pro which score like half of what these gf2/3 cards are getting in other people's benchmarks

Yeah that makes it difficult, perhaps trying some other DVI > HDMI cables might solve the issue or you could just run with it, it shouldn't be stopping you from using windows might be an issue for DOS but it doesnt sound like you will be working in DOS. If you need DOS then dropping back to it from Windows might work or it might be fine with normal DOS and only has the issue with the odd text mode the card uses at post. (I have had this issue with an old TnT2 based GPU, it wouldn't display anything correctly during post but once booted it worked fine)

I think at this point it worth a shot at trying anything and seeing what sticks and lets you do what you need to without hitting the wallet.

Heck you could simply do what you thought of doing before and flashing the VBIOS on the cards with updated versions, I think this is risky but might be the only option if you cant find what's causing it.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 10:31:

Yeah that makes it difficult, perhaps trying some other DVI > HDMI cables might solve the issue or you could just run with it, i […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-18, 10:14:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-18, 09:35:

Well I mean its pretty easy to solve if you have a display with DVI input 🤣 but otherwise you might want to grab a few different DVI > HDMI cables and see if its not the cable itself, if the cable is fine then it gets progressively harder to solve.

I guess your other option is to use a GPU you know works fine with the setup you are using, it would be the easiest solution and cheapest too if you dont want to throw a little cash at the issue with a few extra cables.

There are a couple of other ways around it but again it depends on how much effort you want to expend on it.

I'm trying to replicate some good performance other users are reporting on k6 and p1 setups using these cards. so the cards I have are actually the fastest variants of that in pci and agp
my fallbacks are radeon 7500 and radeon 9800 pro which score like half of what these gf2/3 cards are getting in other people's benchmarks

Yeah that makes it difficult, perhaps trying some other DVI > HDMI cables might solve the issue or you could just run with it, it shouldn't be stopping you from using windows might be an issue for DOS but it doesnt sound like you will be working in DOS. If you need DOS then dropping back to it from Windows might work or it might be fine with normal DOS and only has the issue with the odd text mode the card uses at post. (I have had this issue with an old TnT2 based GPU, it wouldn't display anything correctly during post but once booted it worked fine)

I think at this point it worth a shot at trying anything and seeing what sticks and lets you do what you need to without hitting the wallet.

Heck you could simply do what you thought of doing before and flashing the VBIOS on the cards with updated versions, I think this is risky but might be the only option if you cant find what's causing it.

I've been having trouble finding other bioses for the card or finding a nbitor that works at editing this card's bios

Are you trying to run them at 1080p? It's not uncommon for that to cause problems with cards older than GeForce 6 and Radeon 9xxx. I too have seen drivers bring up an image when the video BIOS didn't. Radeon 8500 used to do that to me with 1920x1200. They can probably work out more flexible DVI behavior in a driver than the tiny video BIOS.

GeForce2 MX might be limited to something more like 1280x1024. GeForce 256 DVI is like that.

swaaye wrote on 2022-02-19, 04:50:

Are you trying to run them at 1080p? It's not uncommon for that to cause problems with cards older than GeForce 6 and Radeon 9xxx. The driver might get you up and running because they seemed to be able to get workarounds for DVI compliance into the drivers.

GeForce2 MX might be limited to something more like 1280x1024. GeForce 256 DVI is like that.

Right now I am kinda just trying to get it to show the bios/setup screen.

The thing is with DVI sometimes the card jumps right to the native resolution at power up and upscales the PC output to that. So it immediately pushes the card to the limit with a high res screen. This behavior varies across cards though. I don't remember what a GeForce 3 does offhand but considering you are having problems....

But it could also be an EDID problem between card and monitor. Something the drivers fix.

I really prefer to use VGA with old hardware because of all this. Even a DVI EDID emulator box isn't a cure all.

It was kinda early in the game for dual headedness being a standard feature on anything but Matrox, so I'm thinking it might be driver enabled.