Why would a Shuttle with ATI/Uli mobo not run a 6800GS?

[Zak33]

Lo good people

I have an ST20G5 Shuttle, as per this spec sheet:

# Mainboard
Shuttle FT20, Shuttle form factor, proprietary design for ST20G5
chipset: ATI Radeon Express 200 + ULi 1573
Phoenix/Award V6.0PG BIOS, 4MBit flash memory
with hardware monitoring and ACPI power management functions
dimensions: 25.4 x 18.5 cm
# Power supply unit
SilentX 240 Watt mini PSU, supports 115/230V
connectors: 20-pin ATX, 4-pin ATX12V, Active PFC

Presuming that the PSU is up to the job (humour me) why can't I get the 6800 GS to install drivers?

I can plug it in, boot it, and run it with no support, and I've run it like that for 1 hour, to be sure. I have the PSU plug into it.

Shuttle's site also claims it should be OK too. I've been running an X1600 XT (no power plug required) for 6 months, faultlessly.

Here's what happens. (I even reinstalled XP fresh, so that any previous Radeon's were gone, only ever using the 6800 GS and it was fine until drivers)

Run nVidia drivers, and follow the Next buttons, half of the drivers unpack (blue bar across the screen) and then: Black screen. Tiny flashing icon in the top left corner.

And it never goes further.

If I reboot into SafeMobe, I can remove the drivers and it's back to ok. ie stable.

Does anyone know of any ULi and 6800 issues?

Moreover, to me, it feels like a driver issue, not a hardware issue, as it doesn't reboot. It just sticks. I have tried downloading the ULi driver pack from Shuttle's web site, and I end up with a RAID option in my task bar. I unistalled that and my PC never rebooted...hence the XP reinstall.

Now...I WILL install those if anyone think's it the way to go and not use them....but dare I?

[Zak33]

moved by moi cos I put it in the wrong forum :-/

[DanceswithUnix]

It does sound like drivers, and my first stop would be to go to the archive drivers area at Nvidia and download a driver from a few versions back. You need to go back a very long way before a 6800 is no longer supported.

I often find the latest Nvidia drivers are flakey with anything other than the latest hardware.

I would also check for a newer BIOS.

[Zak33]

BIOS I did recently.

Older drivers I'll try

[Zak33]

that didn't work either....it does the same thing....drivers are installing the monitor goes black, a small flashing icon top left is there...and the PC never recovers.
Reboot into Safemode and Add Remove them to get back to normal.