I have been using a new installation R5A22 of Knoppmyth, on a low end machine with a TNT2 nvidia card, and an external converter box to view it on TV with some success, however, I recently acquired, cheaply, a later/better video card.

The 'new' card is a GeForce MX440 with 64MB ram and composite video out. I decided to plug it in and try it. Knoppmyth booted normally through all the text boot up messages (watching it at this stage via the VGA out and my external converter box) displayed the usual nvidia splash screen/logo then the grey screen that normally displays just before the Myth blue gui backgound comes up. But this time, the blue background did not appear. In fact, the whole machine appears to hang. I can't even switch to one of the text consoles. I had to reset the machine.

I swapped back to the original TNT2 card, and it works fine. I tried the GeForce MX440 again, with the same result... stops at the grey screen.

Can anyone suggest what is wrong? Am I wrong to even try swapping cards like this? Is there something I need to do first to get it ready for the newer card?

have you made the neccessary changes to the config files for tvout? in particular you do you have the refresh rates right, and tvoutformat and possibly the connected monitor option. see the wiki tvout page for more details.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

You might also check to see if your BIOS settings on the motherboard are correct for the new video card. I had the same nvidia card problem causing my system to hang no matter what changes I made to the XF86Config-4 file. After "correcting" the BIOS settings on the motherboard, the system went smoothly into gdm and MythTV. Turns out that all but two of my variations on the XF86Config-4 file were actually fine, and even the "bad" ones allowed the system to try to start X before dumping me out to a command prompt. Some of the BIOS settings I remember changing are AGP aperture size, Hidden refresh, VGA palette snoop, DAC snoop and Caching/Shadowing options. There are some more involved as well, but I can't remember the exact details, such as whether I enabled/disabled them, etc. I'll check my notes tonight when I get home if you'd like, but you can probably figure it out from a search on the internet.

EDIT: The site I got the settings from was http://www.technologyvault.co.uk/index.shtml under the GeForce FAQs under the question regarding BIOS settings.

I am not using tv out yet. That was going to be the next step. At this point I am still using the external converter, so effectively, I'm still using a monitor on the VGA out.

I have printed out those settings. Not all of them are available in my old BIOS. I will try the card again after I change them.

Just one thing, the card is going graphical, so I think something x'ish is starting. The grey screen I referred to has a graphical mouse pointer (although, it is stuck), is this the 'gdm' you refer to?

OK, tried it, but no luck. I'd estimate only 1/2 of the suggested settings are actually available it the BIOS. It's an old machine, actually AGP 1, so I suppose the card is just a bit too new for it.

It did get further I think. That mouse pointer I mentioned, was actually able to be moved by the mouse. But clicking, right-clicking etc on the grey background did nothing. I used ctrl-alt-sysreq-B to reboot, so I guess it proves not everything was crashed at that point.

I'll have to go back to the secondhand computer store and see if they have anything older. I'll keep the card anyway as it only cost $10, and it works fine in my main desktop (Mandriva installation).

Your problem sounds like mine. But my machine does not hang. All screens appear to go black. But they are actually just real dark. You may want to check if this is happening to you. Crank the brightness on your monitor way up and see if you can see anything.

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GA-K8NS-939 Ultra
AMD 64 939 Venice 3200+
1GB RAM (2 512MB DDR400 184PIN DIMM )
HD3000
2 160GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.7s
MSI Nx6200ax-td128 video card
Cooler Master Cavalier 2 - 350W PS
BenQ DW1640

Thanks,

Chris Lopeman

No, I'm afraid the screen it stops on is quite light coloured. It is light grey and you can see the mouse cursor in the middle.

If you are getting that far it appears to be a problem with the driver or other settings in XF86Config-4. What driver are you using? What are the settings in your Device and Monitor sections?

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Chaintech 7NIF2
AMD Athlon XP 2200
PVR 250
80 + 20 Gig of Storage
512 MB memory

I am not at home at the moment, so I cannot read that file, but I have changed nothing since I installed it. I selected 'tv' when I booted from the Knoppmyth cd, that is all.

As for the driver, I presume it is the nvidia driver, as the coloured nvidia full screen logo shows, just before the grey screen comes up.