Do I need a new video card?

Hi everyone,

This site was invaluable with my last problem so I'm hopingI could get some help with this:

I'm having some graphics problems with the new Nancy Drew game I'm playing (yes, I know I'm far too old, but I'm still young at heart) where at certain times, usually when the viewpoint is changing, all I get are bands of colour rather than a picture. I'm also seeing a bright green line or two on the screen every so often.

The system requirements state that you need a '32MB DirectX 9.0 campatible video card' - to be honest I wouldn't one if it came up and bit me!

PC Wizard gives me the following:

Video card - Sis 650/651/740/661FX/741/760 series
Moniter - Acer X193W
Display - 1024 x 768 pixels at 60Hz in true colours (32 bit)

I'm wondering whether the problem is with my graphics device (I believe it's an integrated chip, though I do have some AGP slots available) or whether I just have my settings all wrong.

 

I'm the opposite: old at heart. I play mature games... like what, you wonder? Like Texas Hold 'em. Totally addicted.

That's the minimum sys. req. I think yours exceeds it. Can you post the motherboard make & model?

 

The PC I have is custom built but I think the motherboard is a Foxconn K7S741MG, the chipset is a SiS741GX and the processor is an AMD Sempron running at 1466MHz.

I don't know whether the monitor is a problem. My hubby bought me a new one for Christmas, but it is a widescreen and the resolution it recommended (can't remember it off the top of my head) didn't exist as an option so I just picked the nearest one to it.

Texas hold 'em - I'll have to check that one out!

 

http://www4.shopping.com/xPF-MB-FOXCONN-SiS-741-K7S741MG-6L-RT

Your mobo has an AGP slot. You can try the game with your onboard video. If it lags bad, get an AGP card like HD3850.

 

I agree it could be that your on-board Video is holding you back the best advice I can offer is that you DL and install the latest VGA Driver and see if that helps otherwise you may have to consider getting a AGP Video Card:

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/en-us...?ProductModel=K7S741MG-6L&TypeID=en-us0000004

Select the "Onboard VGA Drivers" and DL them.

 

Is that new monitor an LCD or CRT? If it's widescreen, the resolution setting of 1024 x 768 seems like a wrong choice. That setting is used on many regular monitors but the different ratio of width to height on widescreen means that 1024 x 768 doesn't fit right. Am I making this clear?

Have tried different resolution settings? If your monitor is an LCD, also called flat panel monitors, it will have a "native resolution". Do you know what is the native resolution for it?

What's the make and model of your monitor?

 

Achilles & Bold Eagle
I downloaded the suggested VGA drivers but got spooked when a warning sign came up saying 'This will remove your Sis Utilities' (or something similar) so I cancelled. Should I proceed? Is it just referring to the previous driver?

Usafveteran
Yes, my monitor is a flat panel and though I can't find the manual at the moment I think the native res is 1440 x 900 (it's an Acer X193w).I know the current setting is wrong but it seems to be the one I can see best. When I go into display properties > Advanced > Adapter > All modes, the above res doesn't exist. The nearest one is 1400x924 which I tried but it means I can't see the bar at the bottom of the screen. It also made the desktop icons absolutely tiny and when I tried to reset the Dpi, it just seemed to present more problems.

 

Well SiS Utilities should be on your original Motherboard Disk and it sounds like apps used to monitor system etc, have a look in your Start menu at SiS Utilities and see if you actually use any of them?

Here let's have a look at SiS and see what they have:

Why my SiS Integrated Graphic can not support 1440x900 resolution?

So your Chipest is SiS741 + 963L, from;

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/en-us/product/Motherboards/detail_spec.aspx?ID=en-gb0000001

And the Drivers that might be better can be found here, not sure of your OS:

http://www.sis.com/download/

I'm sure they will have the utility there as well.

 

Whew - Bold Eagle you Major Geek you.

Well, firstly, I looked in my Sis Utilities, and the only thing in it was the 'utility tray'. However, when I tried to open it an error message appeared saying the system could not locate the SisApcom.dll. So whatever function the utility tray provided I guess I don't need it!

Secondly, yes, my chipset is indeed a Sis741 and it appears I do need to download VGA3. However, my VBIOS version is only 0.69, so it looks like I need to update my BIOS aswell. But don't you really have to know what you are doing before you start messing with your BIOS? As you can probably tell I'm not exactly Charles Babbage - more like Charles Cabbage!

Oh, and my OS, is XP Home Ed.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction so far, and for your patience with the Computer Illiterati.

 

Well I assume you will want what I have highlighted on the Pic and then grab the "SiS UniVGA3 Graphics Driver". Let's leave the BIOS as it does take a bit of acquired knowledge and can damage Motherboards if not done properly. Try this driver firstly and see if that helps. And thanks for the compliment :major

 

Hahaha...And the saga continues. Okay, I've downloaded and installed the updated drivers and hey presto, the game works!

However....the display has set itself at 640 x 480 and everything is just enormous. Of course I would reset the resolution if I could but the display panel is so enourmous that the 'apply' button doesn't appear on the screen, even when I've removed the bottom task bar.

 

Don't bother with apply. Just click ok if the setting is right.

While Windows may support the monitor's native resolution, but the game may not. The game has options/settings that you can change to fit your monitor. Look for video menu, then resolution. With some games, you have to compromise by choosing a close to native resolution.

 

I couldn't see the 'ok' button either. But I had quite a scary moment when I tried to change the Dpi back to 96% by double clicking it - the computer restarted itself and the screen was absolutely blank. I waited for ages hoping it might reconfigure itself but to no avail. In the end I just had to open it in Safe mode and do a system restore. But at least I know the game does work if I set the computer at a different resolution.

I think I need to be a bit more computer savvy and gen up on video cards and the like instead of going at things half-cocked.

 

So, you can't see the bottom of the Display Properties panel, right? Can you drag the panel up higher? You know how to move windows, such as the Display Properties panel around with the mouse, right?

 

Yes I know how to do that but it filled the entire screen so there was nowhere to drag it. At the moment I back with my old settings and considering getting in someone who does it for a living to come and do it for me. It all seems a lot more complicated than I first thought. When I followed the link that Bold Eagle provided me with [Why my Sis GI cannot support 1440 x 900 res], it advised that to upgrade your drivers you needed a VBios of 2.24 or above. Mine is only 0.69, but I don't know how to update the VBios, or whether the BIOS is linked to the VBios, if so how? I don't want to start messing with the BIOS when I really haven't much clue of what is going on. There seem to be so many componenets that are dependant on one another I feel I'm getting out of my depth. Hey, I felt like I'd won the lottery when I managed to order and install some extra RAM all by myself!

 

Ouch so aimeelou okay let's try and rollback to the previous Driver and then we can consider BIOS update if you want (I will find some good links for you to read).

1. Right Click on "My Computer"
2. Click on "Hardware" tab
3. Click on Device Manager
4. Click on Display Adapters
5. Click on the Video Device and select Drivers here there should be an option to "rollback" select this and hopefully that will get you back to where you were.

The may be you could consider the Driver that was DL from the Foxconn? Last time you hesitated (smart move) but that may resolve the issue?

 

Ouch? Oh no, I hope you don't think I was complaining about the info you'd given me, that certainly wasn't my intention. I really appreciate everybody's help and I am learning, but I think I'm suffering from information overload.

I've managed to get back to my old settings and I did DL the drivers from Foxconn and installed them, but that seemed to be the problem. Mybe I installed it incorrectly. I noticed there was a folder for XP SP2, and I followed the instructions in the 'read me' section, but there was no .exe file in the folder, just a bunch of data, so I used the main .exe file. Either that or it couldn't be installed properly because of this VBIOS thingy?

 

H'mmm well at least you got it back to a viewable screen. I just thought of something have you gone to the game's website and DL and installed the latest updates and patches for that game. This has resolved issues for me in the past with certain games:

Wow there are a lot in the series:

http://www.herinteractive.com/prod/index.shtml

Is yours made by them?

 

Drivers can be installed through autorun(no clicks required), setup.exe or something like that, or an INF file (right-click, select Install). It may not take effect until you restart the pc.

 

Bold Eagle:
Doh! Well, I feel like a right pillock now. I can't believe I didn't think to go to herinteractive! Really sorry, I could have saved everyone so much time. Just visited the above link, went to technical help and the answer to my question was right there. It seems the cause is almost always 'old video card drivers' . Well there's a surprise, it couldn't be something easy could it?

Akhillies
I didn't know that about the .INF file. Thanks.

Thanks to you too B.E.

 

Sorry If I came across that way no I didn't think you were I was just aiming for the parsimonious approach!

BIOS can be the death of motherboards but I would have made you read tons of info and gotten an utmost confidence yes before we went there (it aint to hard at all but a minority do it wrong!).

 

New day. New challenge. Let's go for it!

Now I've just been on a site; www.hardwaresecrets.com to try and find out a bit about video bios. I read through the article and then saw this at the end;

This tip is not useful for computers with on-board video. In that case, since the video is produced by the motherboard, the video BIOS is conjugated with the motherboard BIOS, and you just need to upgrade the motherboard BIOS to keep your PC updated.

Now I am confused. Again. I was under the impression mine was an on-board video? If so, does the updating the main BIOS automatically update your video BIOS? And where to go? My motherboard is Foxconn, the video card is Sis, and the BIOS is Phoenix technologies (version 6.00 PG).:confused

 

I think they generalized. Motherboard bios & video bios are two different things. A correct program can show you what versions they are.

 

Oh Okay.

So what do I do now? Sis say I need to update my video Bios before I can update my drivers.rolleyes

 

I thought Bold Eagle giva you the link for updating video bios.

You can update your driver to the latest w/o updating the bios.

 

I would have to agree and think that all Video instructions are coming from the NB and thus the motherboard BIOS will control the IGP. Video BIOS will only be noted for dedicated, "stand alone" Video Cards that have their own GPU, I believe.

The BIOS is found here aimeelou, but I am a bit confused by it, in Fact I can't find any BIOS there!?! only a Flash tool:

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/en-us...?ProductModel=K7S741MG-6L&TypeID=en-us0000004

From there you can DL the BIOS flash tool, you will need a floppy disk. I suggest that you send Foxconn an email and enquire about BIOS for your specific motherboard and indicate that you can't find any BIOS files or their Version numbers and release dates.

Before you start though can we please make sure you have all of your important data backed up from the PC just in case anything does go wrong.

You will need to read the "read.txt" file in the folder. Basically what we are going to undertake (you brave lady) is to "Flash the BIOS" so I have a couple of links here to get you empowered with knowledge. This page looks like a good start the problem Im having is I cant seem to find the BIOS files at Foxconn, just the Flash Tool, maybe if you prepare the floppy as instructed then go to their website again with the floppy drive in it will DL the latest BIOS.

Here is a good article to read to get you started:

http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Hardware-Guides/Why-and-How-to-Flash-Your-BIOS/

 

Please explore everything and ensure you have all you need (in particular a xxxx.ROM file on a floppy disk), and then post back before you commence.