HOW TO FIX THE DVI PROBLEM WITH VISONTEK's XTASY GEFORCE3 Ti500 VIDEO CARD:
The problem lies with the bios of our geforce3 ti500 video cards. You need to update it using NVFLASH. I will provide the following files here on my personal homepage:
geforce3fix.zip includes:
NVFLASH V4.12 (The program used to flash your bios - Only works in DOS mode
in Windows 95/98)
NVIDIA BIOS V3.20.00.26.00 (latest reference bios that fixes the DVI issue)
CWSDPMI (Needed for the flash program to work)
You will also need to download a windows 98 SE bootdisk if you are not running windows 95 or 98. Get one from here: http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/winfiles/boot98se.exe
boot98se.exe - Windows 98 SE Bootdisk (You must flash in Windows 95 or Windows 98 so I will provide a link to a file for you to download and make a windows 98 SE bootdisk so you can boot into dos and flash correctly)
Here's what you do:
Get a blank floppy disk.
Run the Windows bootdisk 98 SE image file and insert the blank floppy.
Unzip geforce3fix.zip to the new bootdisk.
Reboot and boot off the newly made floppy.
Choose "Boot WITHOUT CD-ROM support".
Type "NVFLASH -f gf3t52bt.rom -u -p"
It may give you a warning that the vendor ID doesn't match, press "y" to proceed anyway.
Watch it flash your BIOS, this will take about 5 minutes, DON'T REBOOT OR RESET UNTIL IT IS 100% done.
Congratulations, you now have a GeForce3 ti500 which can be used with DVI in windows XP with the latest Nvidia Detonator drivers.
NOTE: I take NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER if you destroy your geforce card or anything else as a result of my posting here. I am doing this simply to help you guys out and be a nice guy but I assume no liability.
What you need to do is uninstall all NVIDIA drivers, reboot, then, install the new drivers and reboot again and plug in DVI only. It should work for you. :-)
In summary, I updated my Visontek GeForce 3 ti500 bios to the latest Nvidia reference BIOS version 3.20.00.26.00. The previous version is what most of us have, 3.16.00.XX. The new BIOS fixes the DVI issue and I am now running my new Dell FP2000 20" flat panel in Windows XP Professional using the dell .inf driver for the monitor. I see in my display properties:
"Dell 2000FP(Digital) on NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti500"
This is what you should see when you are successful.
Read this article for a professionally written commentary on Flashing NVIDIA BIOS. (Warning: this is an old article but a good read, but make sure you use the files I am providing as the ones on this site are OLD)
http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/nvidia/nvidbios1.htm
Best of luck and e-mail me here if you need anything!
© 2005 backwardshat.com, All Rights Reserved.