Hi, The onboard graphics on my Dell Dimension went up the creek recently with the colour output being completely messed up. So today I bought a new nVidia GeForce 5200 FX PCI card to replace it. I put the card in but stupidly forgot to switch the bios graphics settings to PCI before putting it in. Obviously nothing came up on the screen so i took the card out and plugged back into the mobo vga socket. However when i booted up again nothing came up on the screen. After rebooting a few more times, i tried resetting the bios (taking out the battery for 5 minutes) but to no prevail. I don't beleive the pc is booting properly since normally if i hit f12 to go into the boot menu there is an internal beep but it isnt doing that now and the caps lock/num lock keys are not responding to changes. Any suggestions on what i can do? Thanks, Oliver
Just a double check, did you use the jumper or short the solder points as well as the battery when clearing the bios.
i just took the battery out and unplugged the power supply for 5 minutes. should i have done those things?
I didn't even no you could still buy a new 5 series card! Did you take the new graphics card out before re-trying the onboard graphics? The motherboard might have got confused.
Yeh the new card is out of the case. I was surprised too! I thought i was doomed to getting a new mobo which would mean basically building a new computer.
that doesn't sound good.. so after the battery is out.. make sure the pci card isn't plugged into the board and put the battery back in there is a jumper too- like bullseye said but the battery should do it.. she should boot to let you turn off onboard video.. I would unplug everything but the monitor and keyboard also- just to see
hmm there is a jumper near the battery with 2 pins and underneath it says 'reset password'. would that just be for resetting the password or for completely resetting the bios? also i have 2 other pci cards (sound + extra ethernet) should i unplug these aswell?
ok taking out those 2 cards seemed to trigger something back into action. i'm now getting a fan failure warning but if i hit f1 it seems to boot ok. In the bios, i go to 'Integrated Devices (legacyselect options)' Then there is an option called Primary Video Controller and i can either set it to onboard or auto. i assume auto is the one i want? EDIT: Ok all seems to be working now! the card was auto detected fine. Does anyone have any idead what the 'Alert! Preview fan failuter' means? I can just press F1 to continue and it works but its a bit annoying.
cool your good to go.. there will be a setting in the bios most likely (too lazy to look it up for yours) but you'll find something that says cpu alarm or temperature- just monitors the fan speed to the cpu need a cup of coffee.. oh yeah make sure your cpu fan is plugged into the right fan header also, and check out dell's website if your really stumped.. all info on the dimension should be there for errors
