Installing third party video cards

[Ayman Altounji]

Using a Prioliant 800 as a development machine. Tried to install a third party video card but upon booting, the screen is black and nothing appears. Was able to use a rea old legacy video card but cannot get the newer cards to work. Any suggestions will help.

[Ayman Altounji]

Disable the onboard video with the appropriate dip switch(check inside cover), disable in hardware configuration, install new card in slot 4 (this is the first slot on the primary bus) should work fine if this is done, I have a matrox 8 meg in one of my 800's (6/350) although I have another 800 (6/550) with ati rage and the video on this machine suffices to the point I don't need to add and aftermarket card.
Good luck

[Ayman Altounji]

I got my Proliant 800 6/550 to sort of work with a ATI Radeon 32MB SDR video card. The server boots, the screen is readable and it goes into Windows 2000 Server. I can't get past the driver install. 2000 loads the default vga driver (yellow exclaimation point, 16 color, 600 x800, whee!) with resources of MR B800-BFFF, I/O 2800-28FF, MR C6F8-C6FF, IRQ 52. Windows 2000 Computer Manager reports no Conflicts or Sharing. The onboard video has been disabled at the motherboard DIP switch. The card is in slot one (first primary bus slot on a 6/550) and the VGA resources have been disabled under PCI Function 1 Video Controller in the BIOS. The card seems to be on the verge of working, but I just can't load the drivers. The server hangs hard whenever the ATI driver setup program runs (ATI install CD, ATI hardware wizard, ATI new production and beta 2000 drivers) and must be powered off manually.

[Ayman Altounji]

OK,
Try this, Instead of running the install from the CD, change the video driver manually and point to the CD for the NEW driver. The IMPORTANT thing to remember is after the change, when the machine wants to RESTART thel it "NO", just exit out of the display settings and then shut the machine down.
Dago

[Ayman Altounji]

I got the ATI card to work using a bit more research and persistence. As it turns out, the Compaq recommended slot for video on the 800 6/550 is number 5 due to issues with shared resources with either the inboard NIC or SCSI that occurs when you use slots 1-4. Just for the record, due to resource sharing, slots 1 and 3 should be used for additional NICs and 2 and 4 for extra SCSI controllers. There's also an issue with using IRQ 4 in slot 1, but that's another story. After getting the card in slot 5, it still didn't work, I thought because of the high mapped IRQ, so I set about to force the BIOS to keep all the IRQs between 1 and 15. Turns out you can do this by accessing the Advanced Configuration menu in the BIOS. Boot the server and press F10 when prompted. When you are presented with the first BIOS menu, press Control and the A key. Go through the BIOS to the View/Edit Details part and among the usual stuff will be the Advanced Configuration items. APIC is what you are looking for. It should be set to enabled full table - mapped. Save the changes, boot the server, get into 2000 and check the new IRQ settings under Computer Management. They should all be between 1 and 15. Now the server is more or less like a workstation concerning IRQs at least. I next ran the ATI install with no issues and the video kicks butt. Full on hardware DVD, TV out and killer video.

[Ayman Altounji]

Manhunt,

I did what you said about setting the BIOS. Ok here's what happened, since I can't even see the screen upon booting, I installed the ATI ALL-In-Wonder into slot 6 and also kept the old video card in slot 1 (where i had it originally) I disabled the OnBoard video. I had to use the old video card to see the screen so i could get to the BIOS. I ran the system configuration and it did detect a PCI VGA Controller on Slot 6 and I also set the APCI you were talking about.

Once I rebooted I connected the montitor to the ATI, I still can't see anything on the screen but I it does boot up cuz I can see the keybord lights light up and the hard drive going. So when it was booting into Win 2000 i had to connect back to the old video card to see the screen.

I'm just a little closer now, at least the machine will boot but the monitor still doesn't turn green (the light).

Any other ideas?

[Ayman Altounji]

Mrack,

My recommendations were for the Compaq 800 PIII 6/550. 1. Disable the
onboard video. 2. Install new video card in slot 5 (why's there a video card
in slot 1? don't use slot 6 for video). 3. Boot server (you should at least
have VGA text mode which means you can watch the boot process) and press F10
to invoke BIOS setup. 4. Press CTRL+A from first BIOS screen to invoke
Advanced Config. 5. Goto View/Edit Details and set APIC to Full
Table-Mapped. 6. Disable VGA resources for the new card and for the
motherboard video. 7. Check for shared IRQs (everybody should have their
own IRQ). 8. Save config and reboot into Win 2000. 9. 2000 will
discover/wizard new video card, don't install drivers, choose to disable.
10. Go into Device Manager, find the yellow'd out video, and update the
drivers OR run the install CD.

MAHunt

[Ayman Altounji]

I am trying to install ATI All in-wonder 128 on ProLiant 800 PIII/600 w/Win2K, using method provided by MaHunt. When I boot the server i can't see anyhing on screen. Fans are running and there's activity on HDD but the keyboard lights doesn't light-up. I think it's not booting properly.

Does anyone hve any solutions to this problems?

Steps by MaHunt:
1. Disable the onboard video.
2. Install new video card in slot 5 (why's there a video card in slot 1? don't use slot 6 for video).
3. Boot server (you should at least have VGA text mode which means you can watch the boot process) and press F10 to invoke BIOS setup.
4. Press CTRL+A from first BIOS screen to invoke Advanced Config.
5. Goto View/Edit Details and set APIC to Full Table-Mapped.
6. Disable VGA resources for the new card and for the motherboard video.
7. Check for shared IRQs (everybody should have their own IRQ).
8. Save config and reboot into Win 2000.
9. 2000 will discover/wizard new video card, don't install drivers, choose to disable.
10. Go into Device Manager, find the yellow'd out video, and update the drivers OR run the install CD.

joecus