Please please please help, Problem with a pc im building

[Mike2002]

Hello,

I brought a second hand mobo ( soltek SL5DRV5 )

I've added a amd athlon 1900+ cpu, 256mb pc2700 ram, a lite on cd drive, a maxtor hard drive and a floppy drive.

I cant get my monitor to work

This mobo doesn't come with on board graphics and I cant get my old 3dfx card to run in a pci slot, Im thinking of trying my nvidia geforce 2 but that is a pci aswell.

Im just wondering that if the person before me set his bios for an agp card, would this stop my pci card working and is there any way to get a pci card working by 1 ) resetting the cmos or anyother way.

Ive only build this pc for my girlfriend who needs it for word proccessing.

Please please help.

Thanks in advance

Mike

[Sparky]

Nah - a pci card should work. Try your geforce 2 like you suggest.

What is your 3dfx card? If it's a voodoo2 etc then it's only for doing 3d graphics and needs a 2d graphics card too.

I don't think the problem will be the cmos settings, but you usually reset the cmos setting and then clearing a jumper on the motherboard - which'll be documented in the motherboard manual.

-Sparky

[Mike2002]

the voodoo card is a voodoo 3 pci..

Im thinking of getting a cheap geforce for it, dont know what to get though.

My girlfriend doesn't play any games on her pc so an expensive one would be pointless..

[Mike2002]

would any of these be better:

64Mb ATI 7000 DDR with TV/Out DVI

64Mb ATI Radeon 7500LE SDR AGP TV Out

64Mb ATI Radeon 9200 TV Out Sapphire

thanks very much,

Mike

[MALLET]

IS there an agp slot.U could always try getting a cheapo card for about 10 or 20 quid to see if it works??

[Mike2002]

yeah, Ive been thinking about that, might try to find one in a minute.

Ive just had a chat with the original owner and he said to change the bios to initialize the pci card but I dont know how to do that as I cant see anything...

I could try to use my telepathetic powers.. lmao

Thanks for your help

Mike

[burundi]

If you reset the CMOS to the factory defaults the PCI/AGP should be set to autodetect - IF this option is in the BIOS - I am not sure it would be in the bios though, this is something that should be on a jumper on the motherboard simply for the reason you stated - that if you can't get a display you can't change the setting in the bios :/

[DeathStart]

There should be some way to hard reset the BIOS back to factory settings without having to boot the machine up. I'll see if I can turn up a manual on the net which mentions it.

[Mike2002]

Thanks burundi.

So if I was to reset the cmos it could possible fix the problem?

What is the worst that could happen if i reset it, Im going to get the manual and have a quick read through it to see if it helps.

Im just double checking Ive read everyones advice right as its not my pc and I dont want to see a little puff of blue smoke come out of the top of it.

thanks again, everyone is helping a treat.

Mike

[Mike2002]

thank you very much Gandalf

[DeathStart]

Right, I've had a look but can't find a model number SL5DRV5, but I've come across a manual for the SL75-DRV5 at http://www.soltek.com.tw/downloads/manuals/7series/75drv5%202.2/75drv5-hard.pdf which looks like it might be the one, on page 16 of that manual is a diagram of jumper JBAT1 (Clear CMOS Data).

It says with the power OFF (preferably unplugged at the wall just in case), place the jumper across pins 2 and 3, then move it back to pins 1 and 2 before switching back on. Whatever happens, DO NOT switch the machine on with the jumper on pins 2 and 3 - that could bugger up the motherboard completely.

That should reset the CMOS to default values and hopefully you'll get a display. Failing that, removing the battery for a fair while should have the same effect.

Hope that helps.

[burundi]

So long as you follow the correct procedure for resetting the bios then all you will have to do is put the time and date back in again, the machine should run fine on the bios factory defaults, most of which will be set to auto detect hard drives, cd drives etc...

Once you have it all working you could play around with the settings to improve the performance of the machine but generally factory defaults will work fine.