New graphics card. Black screen.

xsiick

xsiick

Yuuuup. I haven't been on FreeBSD forums in a while for a specific problem. This is actually the first time in maybe a couple months, but the other day I ordered a new graphics card from newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130466

It seems like it would be easy peasy getting it working but I'm wrong. I pretty much thought it was just "plug in and it works" type deal. I was wrong.

About my system:
Dell PowerEdge 1600SC from around 2005
19 inch LCD Dell (not widescreen)
FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE

I'm not sure about this but FreeBSD may not be the problem, because the bios doesn't show either when starting it up. I'll answer any questions you have. It seems like I should be able to overcome a problem like this because I usually do, but I'm wrong.
 
Can you get into the BIOS with your old card (or onboard) and see if there are any options relevant to using your PCI card instead of say, the onboard graphics controller? Have you tried another PCI slot? Or possibly have another machine you could try the card in?
 
This is usually a BIOS matter indeed. Someone delivered a test desktop to me yesterday with a Matrox card in it. When I tried to fire it up with the on-board VGA, nothing showed. So I used the Matrox card to get into the BIOS, switched BIOS from 'PCI' back to 'On-Board' (or something to that effect), and then the on-board VGA came back online. I needed the PCI slot for something else ;)
 
I'm in the bios, and there are a few things here that seem notable:

Integrated Devices
PCI IRQ Assignment
PCIX Slot Information
Video Memory (not a menu)

any ideas?
 
Well, it depends on whether your BIOS actually has a separate option to switch video between PCI and Integrated/On-Board. It's usually in a 'Devices' / 'Video Setup' type sub-menu/option. If you don't have it, maybe a BIOS upgrade will bring in new options.
 
I don't see anything here... I'll look into updating the BIOS. Hopefully it isn't too much of a hassle.

In the meantime, any more ideas?
 
I don't have another machine to try it in, is there another way to decipher that
*edit*
I'm really stuck at this point. I don't know where to turn now.
 
The only thing I can think of would be to see if there is a BIOS update for your machine, that may possibly fix a bug or unlock an option. You can plug your service tag number in on Dell's site to find download for your machine.
 
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