BIOS greyed out settings due to hardware change ?

[corrie]

re-posted as this should have been a new thread

I have just purchased a used mini tower PC, which comprises of the following components and software.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-M69GM-S2H micro-ATX style fitted with an AMD Athlon X2 4400+ (2.3GHz) dual-core processor and 4x 1GB DDR2 RAM modules (from Crucial/Micron). 3.25GB of RAM is available to Windows XP Pro (32-bit) as some is reserved for the on-board graphics chip (Radeon X1250)

I have only added a (2 port) firewire card and also used the PCI Express x 16 slot for the graphics card, a Universal NVIDIA GeForce 7600GT 512M 128Bit DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card

The motherboard has a PCI Express x16 slot & a PCI Express x4 slot
It also has 2 other PCI slots

Graphics card link below
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct..._dkddT99itBK6Q

I decided to use this Card because I need to run my non linear editing system with a card that can handle it ( Avid ) .. I thought the motherboard would accept this card but I have now found my BIOS settings are greyed out .. the load default settings and set passwords are all grey ( 4 of them I can not get into them ) .. However I can select all the other settings from the main menu i.e advanced bios features – but I can not change anything within any of them i.e downstream of the main menu on all the other features.

The only thing I have added that could cause this is the Graphics Card, I have cleared the CMOS and managed to get everything back but once I reboot the same effect as above (greyed out) returns

Within the BIOS Graphics card section
internal display first - you have a selection of 3
PEG
PCI slot
OnChipVGA

PEG refers to the PCI Express ( which I am using ) but I left it selected to PCI Slot .. could this be causing the BIOS to grey out ?? and am I damaging my motherboard ? could be that the motherboard can not run this card at the speed it needs to run .. I must say the card works – displays OK and I have no BSOD or performance problems.

Any advice here would be most welcome as I am a bit stick

Regards

Corrie

[blueball]

Is the Firewire card PCI or PCIe. try removing it and also set the boot display to PEG.

PS What BIOS revision is the board on? Latest release is F6 and latest Beta is F7E: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...2579&dl=1#bios

[corrie]

I have taken a jpg of the BIOS info - can I place it here ?? I can point to a URL .. but no link ... better I put it up in case there is something I am missing

The Firewire Card sits on the PCI slot

I downloaded the F6 file ( I don't trust beta versions ) especially for BIOS flashing

Ps Should I clear the CMOS before I decide to Flash this Board ? and should I take this Graphics card out before doing so ?

[jim]

go to photobucket or imageshack, upload the image there, and then you can give us the URL link here

[corrie]

Thanks for that

Link below

By the way the board has 2 PCIe slots (1 = x16 slot .. the other = x4 slot) which is not the correct size for normal PCI cards

In short I am using the only PCIe slot with the Graphics card that should be able to accommodate it

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...0/BIOSImfo.jpg

[corrie]

Mmmm looks like the BIOS is up to date

[blueball]

Might be worth resetting BIOS to defaults and setting it up again. You should set the boot display to PEG though.

[corrie]

Yes as far as I can see that is the one thing that might be upsetting the board .. will try that in a few minutes time

[corrie]

Cleared CMOS then set the boot display to PEG re-booted and the same fault occurs

[blueball]

Don't suppose you have another card you can try

[corrie]

I have the option of using the internal Onboard Card .. I do not have another PCIe card to try though .. I think I will try the Onboard card just to make sure this mainboard is OK

[blueball]

I have the option of using the internal Onboard Card .. I do not have another PCIe card to try though .. I think I will try the Onboard card just to make sure this mainboard is OK

Sounds like a plan

[corrie]

Well here goes

I switched over to the onboard graphics card re-booted and then discovered that the ATI Graphics drivers where not working as they should ( yellow question mark etc ) so I went and got the ATI package that should get me back to square one

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...2&lang=English

( never checked that when I got the tower as I opened it up and immediately put in the new PCIe card )

I have just re booted and the motherboard is still greyed out at the same points ??
leads me to think I may have to re flash the mainboard ( have not done that for a good few years ) is that very straight forward now a days ?

The only other thing I can think of is that the firewire card might be faulty ? it has a power source which I plugged up using a 4pin 0.2" power connector

I will await some good advise before I move forward

[blueball]

pull the firewire card and try without it.

[corrie]

Pulled the firewire card and re-booted .. NO grey HAIR anymore ...

Now lets think .. this time I never set password within the BIOS .. surly that would not cause this so I can rule that out

The firewire card looks like the culprit ?? ... I could try the other PCIe card now ?? in your view do you think the PCIe card is better than the onBoard card ?

Also the ATI tool took out my personal display monitor driver i.e I have one for my viewsonic monitor that ATI kicked out -- I have a thing about names matching devices - should I put that viewsonic driver back ??

By the way thanks for your help here

[blueball]

Your welcome, that's what the forums for.

I would reinstall your PCIe card now; I expect it to be better than the onboard but hey, I've been wrong before