System wont recognize Radeon 9250 graphics card.

[PhilMose]

I'm trying to install a Radeon 9250 128 MB 64 bit DDR graphics card in my brothers Mercury system. It has an onboard graphics which is a VIA/ S3G CLE 266. This on board graphics is sucking up some of the 256 RAM needed to play Rome Total war.

To get around this and liberate the RAM I fitted the new card in one of the 2 PCI slots but the system doesn't seem to detect the new hardware. It doesn't show anywhere on my computer /properties etc. When you plug the monitor into the card the graphics go to poor VGA quality.

Motherboard manual states that you can install 32 bit PCI interface expansion cards, is this the problem? 64 bit instead of 32 bit?

I have tried various alterations to the advanced setup and PCI/plug and play setup in the BIOS setup utility. nothing seems to help.

Any ideas anyone?

[Will.Spencer]

It is possible that you will have to figure out how to first disable the onboard video card.

I once worked on a system where the onboard VGA card could not be disabled. That was not happy.

On the video card, are there electrical contact which are in front of the PCI connector and which therefore connect to nothing -- but instead just sort of hover over the motherboard?

Have you downloaded and installed the drivers for this card from Radeon?

[PhilMose]

You are spot on with the driver. After posting the message I did some research on the ATI website and found that the software that came with the card (Catalyst control centre) did not support Windows ME. However they kindly provide a download to get you up and running.

The card now works a treat but I can't disable the onboard VIA VGA graphics. I have checked in the BIOS advanced setup but this particular Mercury motherboard doesn't give you the option to disable the onboard graphics. The smallest ammount of RAM it will let me allocate is 16 MB so the best RAM I can acheive is 240 MB.

Rome Total war seems to definately need all 256, as it is running but very jerky. I think I'm going to install a new Kingston 512 MB memory card and give up on trying to disable the onboard graphics as there doesn't seem to be any conflicts with the Radeon card.

Thanks

[Will.Spencer]

Good to hear!

Adding 512MB of RAM will improve system performance even outside of Rome: Total War.

[PhilMose]

Agh! Rome Total war still not running :x I've installed the Kingston 512 memory card and it has detected it fine I've now got about 496 MB of RAM. Everything seems to be running OK on the computer however still no joy.

Checking the spec of the system I've noticed it the motherboard manual says it has a Pro 2000+ processor. However the processor listed in my computer properties is a VIA Samual 2 CentaurHauls ~796 MHz.

Rome TW calls for a Pentium III or Athalon 1.0 GHz. I can't find the spec for this VIA Samual processor on the net. Is it up to the job?

He has only just bought this system I can't believe it can't cope with this game . Rome TW is not that new a game.

Hope you can give me a steer.

[Will.Spencer]

Originally Posted by PhilMose

Agh! Rome Total war still not running :x

Does it give you an error message?

Originally Posted by PhilMose

I've noticed it the motherboard manual says it has a Pro 2000+ processor. However the processor listed in my computer properties is a VIA Samual 2 CentaurHauls ~796 MHz

The Pro 2000+ is a 1.3Ghz Duron. That's a very different chip.

Originally Posted by PhilMose

I can't find the spec for this VIA Samual processor on the net.

Here's the VIA C3 Samuel 2 Data Sheet.

Originally Posted by PhilMose

Rome TW calls for a Pentium III or Athalon 1.0 GHz. Is it up to the job?

The 796Mhz VIA C3 Samuel 2 has performance which is just a bit slower than a 500MHz P-III. That sounds like a no.

Originally Posted by PhilMose

He has only just bought this system.

Perhaps that's the best news of all. Can he take it back?