Topic: Intel Extreme Graphics Vs PCI Card

[Paddylast]

Hi,

This is my first time posting here and from what I've seen so far it looks really good.

I bought my current PC at the beginning of the year and thought that the option with the onboard (intel extreme) graphics would be fine for me as I don't play that many games (I do play some).  I've since found out that this option is pretty poor and the graphics quality in most games is really bad.  I decided to buy a graphics card and then found out that there is no AGP port and that I'd have to buy a PCI graphics card.  I saw a cheap one in my local computer shop and decided to buy it (Hercules 3D Prophet 9000 PCI).  I installed it and after some intiial problems I got it to work and all my games were much better.

However, there was an intermittent problem in that I would get a message on boot up saying "Error allocating IRQ" and when this happened it gets by without any graphics card (really slow and can't play games).  I would reboot the PC and this would normally resolve the problem.  I was happy enough to do this from time to time but now almost every time I boot the PC I get the same message and I can't play any games.

I've got the onboard graphics disabled via Device Manager and I've set the graphics option in the setup menu to "AUTO" rather than "ONBOARD".  When I start Windows in safe mode I can see that the graphics card is using IRQ 11 and no other device is using this IRQ.

I'm absolutely baffled with this and short of selling the PC and buying another one with an AGP slot I don't know what to do next so any help on this would be much appreciated.

Cheers...

[Sandra]

Hi Paddy and

If you disable or uninstall a device in the device manager then it will reinstall it and enable it again on the next boot up.
You need to disable the onboard graphics in the bios to stop it being detected and installed.
Hopefully this will solve your problem  

[Paddylast]

Thanks for the suggestion Sandra but I can't disable the card in the bios - I can only set it to detect the graphics card automatically (rather than always select onboard).  In other words, the two options I have for graphics card detection are "AUTO" and "ONBOARD" - obviously I've selected "AUTO" but I get the "Error Allocating IRQ" when it boots up with this setting.

Any more suggestions.... :brick:

[Sandra]

Can you tell us which make and model of mobo you are using.
I havent come across one that wont allow you to disable the onboard one in bios before  

[Paddylast]

I'm not sure what the exact motherboard is but the chipset is Intel 845GV.

Is this of any help to you?

[Sandra]

Not really unfortunately.
Do you know the BIOS make and number, it comes up on the screen as its booting if you hit the PAUSE key you should be able to read it  

[Paddylast]

I can't see any Motherboard information on boot up.  the only thing that shows up here is the bios version (DELL Computer Corporation A05) - do you know of any other way to find this out?  

[Sandra]

Thats the thing I need.
It should say something like AMIBIOS ver xxxx or PHOENIX or one of a couple more possibilities right at the start of the boot up process before it identifies drives  

[TR]

Paddy last have a look at This  dload it, it will give you all the info you need on your Mobo  

[Sandra]

Oh, that is the BIOS.
Its Dells own one possibly under licence from ami  

[Paddylast]

Thanks for that Hookstar but the only information that gives me is that the Motherboard name is DELL Dimension 2400.  I had also downloaded another similar program - Belarc Advisor - and it tells me that it's a "Dell Computer Corp. 0G1548 A00" and version A05 12/02/2003 BIOS...........

[Simon]

That Everest thing is what used to be AIDA32.  Glad it's got a replacement, as the original program vendors stopped distributing it.

[TR]

Simon..the everest is better than the Aida32 even though its the same    does that make sense lol

[Simon]

No.  

[Dack]

Back to the original problem

Motherboard should disable the onboard when you have AUTO selected and insert a graphics card - the Bios is at the last revision they did for it (December 2003)

Sounds like one of your other cards is in conflict with the IRQ required for the graphics card - did you move an existing PCI card to install the graphics card and then power up with both cards inserted? (As the driver for the original card would then still be present and trying to grab the IRQ). In safe mode only minimal driver support would be loaded and so the problem wouldn't occur.

Worth installing the latest ATI drivers first as they may detect and resolve the problem.