Problem with install 10.1 with Nvidia 7600GS PCI-e
 

Okay, completely new to Linux, wanted to install as a second OS on my XP Home system

Here is the problem. Installer does not want to recognize my 7600GS PCI-e card. Just crashes and reboots. If I use the onboard video, works just fine, but as soon as I try and hook up the card, crashes again.

Here is what I am running

Pentium D930 on Intel D945GNt mainboard
1024M dual channel DDR
LG DVD Multi
AOpen 17" LCD

Incidently, tried Fedora Core 5 with basically the same result.

One thing I've noticed is that the bios does NOT have a section to disable the onboard, only to boot the PCI card first. Seems to me that this is a flaw in the bios, not used to Intel boards.

Any ideas how to get around this?

My first suggestion would be to try the BIOS vendor, or the mainboard vendor, to see if there is a BIOS update available which adds support for the 7600GS.

My second suggestion would be to be more specific about what 10.1 means. How many distros are there in version 10.1 now? Let's see; no, don't tell me; let me guess. ???

As often as I've seen questions posted in the wrong board, the fact that you posted in the SuSE board may or may not be significant. If it is signigicant, then I'd suggest that you use the onboard card for now. Then, compile a custom kernel to be certain that the necessary modules for the 7600GS are compiled (in kernel or as modules), then try plugging the 7600GS in again.

Sorry........yeah........of course meant Suse 10.1......

Am checking right now for Bios and driver updates.

Thanks for the suggestions

Most modern mother boards don't have a BIOS command to disable the on board video chip set. The mobo does that automatically when a video card is discovered. The open source video drive for Nvidia cards and chip sets is "dv". SuSE automatically selects it on install. The driver "vesa" should also work. Both are 2D only but your system should function with those drivers. For SuSE 10.1, I recommend that you do the following to install 3D.

1. Get system up with the defaults and provide Internet access. Make sure kernel-sources, gcc and make are installed.
2. Open terminal window and enter "init 3"
3. Log in on the command line that comes up as root
4. enter "tiny-nvidia-installer --update"
5. Answer the questions. If in doubt select default choices.
6. The latest driver matching your card has been installed. Reboot system.
7. In a terminal window enter "3Ddiag" and you'll see that 3D is running. "glxgears" on the command line will show a 3D image in motion and in the text window display the frame rates achieved.

But that's the problem. I can't get the system up and running. SUSE will NOT install with the card. Just hangs when it tries to install. And if I install it with the onboard, I can't boot with the 7600 card. I'm guessing there's some install argument I can use to force it to see the card, but I don't know what it is.

Have you ever used this card successfully? Is this a new system you assembled from components? This sounds like a card problem to me. Make sure the card is well seated in the mobo connector. IMHO, If the mobo needed a command to use the separate video card your system would be expecting to see a video connection on its video connector.