PCI installation problems

[labortius]

Hi to all!

I hope you had a good Christmas!

I've got a weird problem with my computer - I'll explain it best I can.

Normally, I have a 7900GTO in PCI-E
underneath a spare PCI slot
then a Soundblaster Live!
then another spare PCI slot

three PCI slots in total.

Today I installed a second hand Creative X-Fi sound card I got second hand off ebay, in the PCI my SB Live! was in.

Computer powers up, no display, despite restarts, complete power offs.

Take out X-Fi, computer starts fine, with display working fine.

Put in SB Live! computer starts fine, with display working fine.

I put in an old PCI graphics card in the SB Live slot, leave SB Live! out, same problem, computer turns on, but nothing on display.

I put SB Live! in the top spare PCI slot, just under the 7900GTO, same problem.

All that seems to work is SB Live! in slot no 2.

Anybody any ideas? My displays are Hanns-G HW223DP and an old VGA monitor, both don't show any display without SB Live! in PCI slot 2. My motherboard is Gigabyte 965P-DS3.

Thanks!

 

[michiganteddybear]

you have 3 problems here if I read this right..

#1, bad X-Fi card...
#2, pci video card booting prior to pci-e (why when pci card is installed you get no display on pci-e card).
#3, IRQ conflict with the Live and video card when its installed in topmost pci slot. each pci slot has different IRQ lines ran to it, and some are shared with other parts of the mobo.

 

[labortius]

Thanks Michigante - some good ideas, I'll test them out.