Well, I decided to try and upgrade my video card. I had a stable RedHat system up and running, and wanted a little better video performance. Stupidly, I didn't take the "supported hardware" list with me to the store. I went to Fry's Electronics, and asked a sales rep there what he recommended that I use for a Linux box. He said he knew a little about Linux, and that the NVIDIA chipsets were mostly supported (better than the other chipsets, he said). So, he handed me a box ($100) and I said that I would try it out. I bought:
PNY Verto GeForce FX 5200 PCI 128MB w/ Dual VGA and S-Video.
I'm not too concerned with the tv-out or the dual headed video, though those features would be nice to have. I got home and installed the video card with no problems at all. Then I booted up... I went to my BIOS and told it not to use the integrated video device, and to instead use the PCI card, then restarted. I'm using the GRUB boot manager, and it's screen loaded fine - with my Linux kernel and my XP Pro options listed as normal. I chose my Linux install, because that is what I wanted the card for in the first place.
Ever since I first installed Linux, at this point, the logon prompt would display, then about a second later, the screen would click over to the resolution desired by the xserver and I would have my graphical login available. This time, it clicked, remained black, then clicked twice more, and dropped me back at my text logon. About a second later, it clicked back to the black screen, clicked twice more and back to the text logon. This continued for several minutes, and I had had experiences in the past with something similar on RH9 (when i first installed it), when it couldn't determine my video card's resolutions. It eventually (back then) went to the blue text screen that asked me if i wanted to view debugging info about the server's errors, and then would usually go into a default video mode so I could change my resolution and probe my card/setup my monitor. This always occured after only a few clicks. This time, I left it running for a good 15 minutes (with the monitor turned off - I played some video game console games to pass the time). I turned the monitor back on, and it was still clicking back and forth from the text logon to the graphical logon.
At this point, I assumed that it wasn't going to work, so I tried the Ctrl-Alt-F# keys... I remembered being able to swich to different virtual terminals, or whatever they are called by doing this. Still click-click-click... It wouldn't switch over for me at all. So, I tried the Ctrl-Alt-Bksp to 'kill the x-server'. This didn't do what I thought it was going to at all - it actually rebooted the entire computer!
So, I turned the system off completly and took the card out of my computer. I turned the computer on and went back to the BIOS and made sure my onboard video was on, default, and the settings were correct (it shares system memory). Booted up, and the GRUB screen was very dark. I paid no attention, and selected my Linux kernel from the boot manager. When the logon screen finally came up, the same click-click-click continued which shouldn't have happened, because I switched back to my original video card.
I should note here that as I'm installing/uninstalling cards, RH9 has an automatic detection/installation for new devices during the time it is starting everything, after GRUB, and before the logon. It's detections were correct.
Nothing was working at all, and so I rebooted to my rescue disk, but to no avail. However, booting to this rescue disk caused a green "mute speaker" image to be displayed on my monitor's lower left corner. I'm using a Dell 1025 (17" Trinitron). I've never seen it before, especially since my monitor does not have speakers or even the ability to hook them up to it. So, I attempt to access the OSD of the monitor with the Menu Button on it's front panel... Everything was garbled in the OSD (it was half in japanese and half in german, when normally, it was in English), and I could only select 2 options - the OSD security option and the exit option. Inside the security option, I could only select "exit", and it's screen was garbled as well.
More click-click-click goes on, and I reboot again. This time, booting to XP Pro
It loads fine, and so, I shut down completely, install the GeForce card and boot to windows again, and everything is fine (My monitor is really dark and fuzzy at this point, and the OSD is still garbled - I have tried turning it on and off, unplugging it for a long time... all to no avail).
I switched monitors to a 15" I had spare, and tried Linux one last time with each video card, both failed to boot or let me get into Linux to even examine the xf86config file
Still click click click text click click click on and on.
I did, in the process, attempt to use each of the three heads available, and even the s-video output in an attempt to determine if it was trying to put the display on some other output source, but nothing has worked. I've lost my good monitor, too it seems
and the card doesn't appear to work under Linux at all...
What are my options? Can I ever boot to my Linux kernel? Even in text mode? Is this a normal situation? Should I exchange the card for something that RH might support better? I'm disappointed and worried I may have lost my RH installation.
