 
nVidia GeForce 7300 LE Graphics Card
Parts Shamelessly borrowed / stolen from: SuSE Wiki
SuSE 11.0 Find out which agp module is currently loaded by running # lsmod | grep agpTypical names are intel_agp, sis_agp, via_agp etc. Please ignore agpgart here. Top Video Cards x16 lane bus compliant slot. Is another name for a PCI-e video slot. Top Monitors ;===============================================================; Gateway FPD1830.inf ; manufactured by LG Electronics ; Revision 1.0 , April-14-2005 ; Copyright(c) Gateway,All Rights Reserved. ;=============================================================== FPD1830 This is an LCD monitor that was given to me by my friend Danny. I just plugged it in to a machine I was testing and it worked untill... I changed some boot-up settings. Wow! Thought that the Video Card has died, cause video problems were what the PC was in my shop for anyway. After trying another Video card ... and it not working either ... I tried a different Monitor. It worked!! Hmmmmmm... with the other monitor still connected, and working, I put the boot-up settings back to the original way. Then I tried the FPD1830 again ... and it worked! Now then, upon boot-up there was a BIG difference between the two Monitors. The system was Windows 7 on a Gateway 5664 PC. At power on the FPD1830 was black and stayed black until finally the Win7 pretty blue screen with flowers appeared. This didn't seem right and is why I was messing with the boot-up in the first place. The other Monitor, a Viewsonic VA520, showed the Gateway "Cow Block" and some info about F2 and F10. Then it showed a screen with the usual at the top of checking some software and the option to boot from a CD. I did not get any of this with the FPD1830. Further investigation showed that ... I needed some Device Drivers and that I was lucky it was working at all. This Monitor, in fact both of them, are old and pre-Vista/Win7. The FPD1830 has the same problem my HP cp1700 printer has. Their manufacturers did NOT create drivers for Vista or Windows 7 for them. TopSamsung T260 on ATI 9700 17 Nov 2010 I spent 4-5 hours on this and I need to re-late this story before I forget the details, somewhere, and here is best I can find for now. As it happens I was called by the gentleman mentioned above who gave me the FPD1830 monitor. His call was concerning the monitor that he replaced it with, a Samsung T260. As it turns out, both monitors have a VGA and a DVI connection. The video card in his Gateway, an ATI Radeon 9700, also has a VGA and a DVI connection. They had them "both" connected and things were working fine, previously. Now with his new "Wide Screen" monitor, his circles are squished. He wanted me to make them round again. Hmmmm...?? This is the kind of problem that people experience when going from the 4:3 aspect ratio to the 16:9 aspect ration. This is the Horizontal versus the Vertical, horizontal being the first number and vertical being the second. Just looking at the numbers tells you something is going to come out differently. So, what do we do?? Well, as usual, we search the Web for answers. The documentaion does not cover this problem. However, on the Web we find that the T260 Monitor, and the ATI 9700 video card can both handle this wide screen situation with a 1920x1080 resolution setting. (again this is horizontal first vertical second) Now then, here we come with the start of the afternoon nightmare. The current drivers for the ATI card do not have the 1920x1080 resolution as a selection. Searching the Web we find that new drivers are available. So they are brought down. DirectX 10 was also mentioned so it was brought down too. This was done via a Satellite connection which I found is faster than phone but nowhere near as fast as my Cox Cable. After getting the drivers, I went back to the ATI/AMD site for info. They have pages of documentation on installing and setting up their cards. The one for Updating the ATI 9700 on Windows XP was found and followed ... to the letter. Now then, I got to the point where they said "ALL of the previous drivers had to be removed... BEFORE installing the new ones." Hmmmmm... thinking?? Back of my mind says, "What is gona operate the card whilst I have these removed and am installing the new??" After some thought and remembering some experiences of the past, I remembered that Windows has a default Video driver. OK. So we will follow the directions and remove all the old driver software. Next instruction was to Restart. Arrrrggghhh!!!! I was greeted with a totally blank black screen. Now what?? My friend panicked cause he thought all his Shop information was gone. I reasured him that it was just the display part and none of his information was lost -but- he was still not comfortable. Can't blame him, I wasn't very comfortable either!! Because of the experience I had with the other monitor above, I went back to my shop to get the little monitor and see if I could get a display, like the last time. Well, the trip was a waste. I have an adapter plug so I could plug my Viewsonic into the DVI and I'll swear that I tried both connections on the ATI 9700 card. The VGA and the DVI. One at a time cause my little Viewsonic only has one connection. No display. So, after more Web Searching I found a service number and called the ATI Tech. After relating my delima to him, he told me to:
Wow!!! With the Samsung T260 plugged into "only" the VGA connection I got a display. It was a 640x480 -but- it was a display. I thanked the Tech and praised him for the help. He also told me that the 1920x1080 resolution was only available on the VGA connection. Hmmmm... ok I said and we closed. Now then, I still needed to install that new driver and get things setup. I was able to set 1280x1024 so I could get a more readable format and then continue. Once again I followed the directions on the installation page. Once again, listening to the Tech I only had the VGA cable connected. After the driver software installation a System Restart was performed. Arrrrggghhh!!!! Once again I was greeted with a totally blank black screen. Ok. Let's stop and think. We theoretically have the proper and correct drivers installed. It is connected "like I was told" to connect it. -But- no display. Alllrighty now. Prior to this driver installation mess, and when I first got here, "both" cables were connected to the Video Card and the Samsung T260 monitor. So let's shut down the System and re-connect both cables. After doing this, I fired up the System ... AND ... it worked. So, remember ... the experts aren't always right. Annnddd... following directions isn't always the best way either. Top |
