[ahmedusthefirst]

hey guys,

I have a Vista ultimate machine that i upgraded from windows xp so i can get used to vista (and directx 10). It has 3gb of DDR ram, an AMD 64 bit processor at 2.2 ghz, onboard Nvidia geforce 6100, and 80 gb hard drive with approximately 20 gb left. I'm trying to install a new vga, EVGA e-GeForce 8400 GS, but it's not working and the computer tells me that the system doesn't have enough resources. I checked the specs of the card with what i have and i noticed two problems. The box mentions 256 mb ddr2 memory that I'm assuming is on the card, could this be the problem since my motherboard only supports DDR memory? The card also requires 18 A on the 12 V line, while my power supply sends out 15 A on the 12 V line. Could this also lead to this problem? Finally, like I said, im still getting used to vista, and as I was checking the system resources window, i noticed that it has the vga on there. It lists a conflict between the vga and a PCI standard pci-to-pci bridge. Is there a way I can resolve this without disabling the bridge?

Thanks in advance for your help, and I look forward to your suggestions.

Ahmed

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Video card memory and computer motherboard memory are not the same thing.
The fact your card requires 18A and your PSU only puts out 15A isn't a contributing factor to the system resources message but you may find it becomes an issue later on when you put the card under load.

Error code 12 is typically caused when there are so many devices in a computer and not enough room to use them all in the space available.
The Original IBM specification of 1981 specifies 15 IRQs - an IRQ is a Interrupt ReQuest so basically each device interrupts what the computer is doing hence its name, many times over.

For many years afterwards 15 IRQs were more than enough with one device per IRQ. Then things started to evolve and suddenly 15 IRQs weren't enough. A technology called IRQ sharing, part of Windows XP and later, became very important. This basically allowed many devices to share the IRQ numbers they were given on the basis that they wouldn't have a need to be used together by the system.

These days the systems are so fast that devices that still IRQ share don't make it obvious that they are, and also modern systems have the ability to increase the IRQ range up to 255, of which 24 are usable in a Windows environment but that's still more than enough. It's also part of the reason why newer systems no longer have support for Windows 98 and ME, as these operating systems expect an tight environment.

You may well find that installing the chipset drivers will patch the driver for the PCI-to-PCI bridge which will in turn free up enough resources for the graphics card. Failing that go into BIOS and turn off any devices you aren't using. If you have a USB printer you don't need the parallel port for example. Also turn off the onboard graphics if it hasn't gone already.

Edited by Neil Jones, 14 September 2008 - 03:23 AM.

[Neil Jones]

Video card memory and computer motherboard memory are not the same thing.
The fact your card requires 18A and your PSU only puts out 15A isn't a contributing factor to the system resources message but you may find it becomes an issue later on when you put the card under load.

Error code 12 is typically caused when there are so many devices in a computer and not enough room to use them all in the space available.
The Original IBM specification of 1981 specifies 15 IRQs - an IRQ is a Interrupt ReQuest so basically each device interrupts what the computer is doing hence its name, many times over.

For many years afterwards 15 IRQs were more than enough with one device per IRQ. Then things started to evolve and suddenly 15 IRQs weren't enough. A technology called IRQ sharing, part of Windows XP and later, became very important. This basically allowed many devices to share the IRQ numbers they were given on the basis that they wouldn't have a need to be used together by the system.

These days the systems are so fast that devices that still IRQ share don't make it obvious that they are, and also modern systems have the ability to increase the IRQ range up to 255, of which 24 are usable in a Windows environment but that's still more than enough. It's also part of the reason why newer systems no longer have support for Windows 98 and ME, as these operating systems expect an tight environment.

You may well find that installing the chipset drivers will patch the driver for the PCI-to-PCI bridge which will in turn free up enough resources for the graphics card. Failing that go into BIOS and turn off any devices you aren't using. If you have a USB printer you don't need the parallel port for example. Also turn off the onboard graphics if it hasn't gone already.

Edited by Neil Jones, 14 September 2008 - 03:23 AM.

[ahmedusthefirst]

Thanks for the help neil. It turns out if i disable one of my pci-to-pci bridges, my display is fine, but the video card is not recognized by the computer. I checked the gigabyte website for an updated chipset driver, but its from 2006 (the manufacturing date of the mb). I've looked into changing the IRQ number for the pci-to-pci bridge, but vista has it grayed out. I also disabled the parallel ports through BIOS, but I couldnt find the option to turn off the onboard vga. If you have any other ideas, please let me know. Thanks for the help.



Edit: after browsing through device manager, i learned that the vga was connected to the bridge that i was disabling. Device manager shows only one memory conflict involving the video card. ive run out of options and ideas. any help?

Edited by ahmedusthefirst, 14 September 2008 - 05:56 PM.

[Neil Jones]

You can download new chipset drivers from whoever the chipset is, in your case Nvidia. You don't have to stick only to the drivers on Gigabyte's site for your board. Most Gigabyte boards turn off onboard graphics automatically though there's an option to force it enabled anyway if needs be.

Also do your Windows Updates through Vista. Many times it'll want to download something that'll solve all the problems.