(Paul) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(dluxea) wrote:

hello,
in short: I have the above hardware and the motherboard refuses to
powerup (at all) with this video card in.

full story: I used this video card with an abit vp6 motherboard and it
worked great after sorting out the drivers issues. recently I decided
to upgrade to an asus p4c800e deluxe mobo.
the specs:
asus p4c800e deluxe, pentium 4 3.2ghz, kingston 1gb memory, video msi
geforce 4 ti 4600 vtd, toshiba dvd rom, sony dvd rw, ibm 20g hd, wd
120g hd, enermax 430 watt psu, hitachi 630 crt monitor, case and psu
fans are connected to the pins on the motherboard.

so now, let me try to explain what exactly happens. I also have a msi
geforce3 and an ati pci video cards that the system boots up with
fine. the geforce 4 works fine in the abit vp6 mobo but refuses to
work in asus p4c800edlx and asus p4b533.
I tried to trouble shoot before posting and I can't come to a
resolution. after reading the manuals, the 2nd asus mobo lights up a
red led on it, which, going with the manual, says that the card is
3.3v. so I figure that both of the asus mbs recognize this card as if
it was 3.3v. yet I know the geforce4 is a 1.5v, it's keyed for 1.5v
and it also works flawlessly in the abit vp6 mobo.
On the other hand the asus pc probe shows that the agp slot supports
3.3v. I don't have any other cards plugged in any of the pci slots.
I tried booting up with just the video card and it just refuses to
powerup. the p4c800edlx lights up a green led to show the atx+5v runs
through the mobo but when I press the power button nothing happens.
I wrote to supports@msi on 2apr2004-no response yet, I contacted asus
but they keep repeating exactly what I write to them, after 3 emails
with them they said: yes looks like it doesn't work.
I upgraded to the latest bioses and drivers, it looks that there has
got to be some kind hardware conflict which I don't understand
exactly. I bought this msi geforce4 card over a year ago and it cost
me $450 so I don't really feel like getting another video card.

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions as to what I should do.
thank you.

AFAIK, the Asus burnout protection circuit is connected to the
TYPEDET pin on the AGP connector. If TYPEDET says the card would
prefer 3.3V, then the red led lights up, and powerup is gated off.
I don't think anything else influences how this works.

Some manufacturers have made mistakes when building video cards.
The AGP standard clearly states, to make a logic 0 indication
on the video card, TYPEDET should be connected directly to ground.
Some manufacturers use a low value resistor to make the connection
instead (as the manufacturing test engineers prefer the use of
a resistor, as it eases testing the card at the factory).

If the motherboard injects too much current into this pin, in
an attempt to test whether the pin is logic 0 or logic 1, then
with the resistor in place, an indeterminate level can result.
Apparently, this is enough to trigger the burnout protection.

If the resistor has accidently been scraped off the board,
then the wrong level results. (I know about that, because
I've managed to rip two resistors off video cards while handling
them...)

If it was my card, I would use an ohmmeter, to check whether TYPEDET
is connected to GND on the video card via a direct short. A little
piece of wire soldered to the right two points would help ensure the
card is sending a good level to the motherboard. This is not an
end-user procedure, and if your video card has a warranty, you
might try returning it, in the hope that a later version of the
card fixes the issue.

Sometimes, the reason for the malfunction, is a fault in the
burnout protection circuit on the motherboard. As you've reproduced
the problem on two motherboards, odds are the video card is at
fault, and not the motherboard circuit.

Ref: See page 41 of:
http://developer.intel.com/technolog...0_final_10.pdf

The connector pinout is on page 50.

I first learned about this issue, with respect to a Matrox
card that used a resistor for the TYPEDET pin. On the poster's
motherboard, instead of AGP 1.5V, the video card managed to
convince the motherboard to provide around 2V, which is incorrect
and presumably due to not having a good short directly to
ground as instructed in the standard.

HTH,
Paul

First of all, thank you so much for your insight. I didn't get a
resonable response from neither asus, msi or msi forum, which tells me
that the manufacturers don't really care about end users, just the companies
they sell their products in bulk to.
The card was not damaged in any way, scraped or anything like that, it's in
immaculate condition, yet refuses to work. The card is no longer under any
warranty so I could do anything to it. But I feel like I should take this
issue up with the maker, msi, who didn't respond to the email I sent for
over a week now. And the forum, independent of msi, didn't respond either.

So now, if msi refuses to work with me on the card:
Do you think they could fix such issues within asus mobo bios ?
or is there anything I could do by myself to the card to make it work ?

Again, thanx so much for your reply.