Black screen with Diamond Stealth S540 Xtreme.

External Since: Dec 05, 2004 Posts: 3

OS is Win98 (not SE).

MB is VA503+ with JE4333 BIOS and AMD K63+450 (not OC). Memory is
two sticks of Crucial 128mb ECC memory (ECC enabled). System is
about six years old and runs well. AGP2 is enabled and AGP video
is first choice (in BIOS).

Card installs fine in the AGP slot and I have tried two sets of
drivers: the ones that came with the card and the most current
ones from the manufacturer. Installed per instructions.

Card is detected, drivers loaded and time to reboot (normal).

Part way through the reboot process (maybe 1/3), the screen goes
all-black and the only flashes of color/light are when icons and
toolbars are created--then they disappear immediately into the
black screen also. The video is working (signal being received)
and Windows is "up and running" correctly (even if I can't see it)
because various programs come up if the arrow keys are used to
move "blindly" within the screen and I then hit <enter>. No
reported conflicts or errors in Windows/Safe Mode (execept to
report they don't work until reboot).

I replaced the Stealth with a Radeon AGP card and found a set of
Radeon drivers that work properly. However, I would like to use
the Stealth video card if possible.

Any ideas/fixes as to the Stealth card problem?

Regards, Jerry

External Since: May 14, 2004 Posts: 183

I believe the Stealth 540 used some sort of S3 chipset (Savage3?). Try
the latest reference drivers from S3 to see if those work any better.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.s3graphics.com/drivers.jsp" target="_blank">http://www.s3graphics.com/drivers.jsp</a>

The FIC VA-503+ FAQ also suggests disabling "DRAM Read Around Write" and
"DRAM Write Pipeline" in the BIOS for the Matrox G200. Maybe this will
work for you, too. I would try the drivers first, though.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/faq.aspx?model_id=19" target="_blank">http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/faq.aspx?model_id=19</a>

--Alex

Gerald Abrahamson wrote:
> OS is Win98 (not SE).
>
> MB is VA503+ with JE4333 BIOS and AMD K63+450 (not OC). Memory is
> two sticks of Crucial 128mb ECC memory (ECC enabled). System is
> about six years old and runs well. AGP2 is enabled and AGP video
> is first choice (in BIOS).
>
> Card installs fine in the AGP slot and I have tried two sets of
> drivers: the ones that came with the card and the most current
> ones from the manufacturer. Installed per instructions.
>
> Card is detected, drivers loaded and time to reboot (normal).
>
> Part way through the reboot process (maybe 1/3), the screen goes
> all-black and the only flashes of color/light are when icons and
> toolbars are created--then they disappear immediately into the
> black screen also. The video is working (signal being received)
> and Windows is "up and running" correctly (even if I can't see it)
> because various programs come up if the arrow keys are used to
> move "blindly" within the screen and I then hit <enter>. No
> reported conflicts or errors in Windows/Safe Mode (execept to
> report they don't work until reboot).
>
> I replaced the Stealth with a Radeon AGP card and found a set of
> Radeon drivers that work properly. However, I would like to use
> the Stealth video card if possible.
>
> Any ideas/fixes as to the Stealth card problem?
>
> Regards, Jerry