Radeon 8500 128MB LE

I would have thought so too Riva but calinerti posted, "I have the very same card by Hercules and I use it both for DVD playback on my TV, and all other stuff on the monitor. I just turn off, unplug one, plug the other in, and it works great. The BIOS version is 7.008 and I just have loved that card since I got it. Have you installed the appropriate Control Panel with the Cat 3.2's? I use the 3.2's without problems. Under advanced options you should have an Options tab which will tell you the bios version...."

and jcop said he has same BIOS as that... though for me, it would be unacceptable to plug and unplug and reboot each time just to switch displays...

 

I can say the same... but I have FDX 8500 LE 64MB, and there are many 7.008 BIOSes by Hercules (for example, I got 7.008 on my card which very differs from 7.008 on the net).

@Calinerti:

Can you dump your BIOS and upload it somewhere?

 

@Calinerti Can you please send me your BIOS??

if possible, then another question

How was his bios installed, during setup drivers?? Sorry but I don't know alot concerning bios issues.

 

I will need a place to upload my BIOS. Just to make sure, I am using Hercules 8500 le 128mb (250/250). BIOS version is 7.008, which is the original one it came with, I have never seen the need to flash it.

Also, I am not sure if I have to power down to switch displays, just that my TV is in another room so I have to move box/keyboard/mouse each time I have a DVD or VCD or whatever to watch.

1jcop1: do you use ICQ or Yahoo messenger?

 

No don't have MSN of yahoo messenger, but concerning bios you can send it to
cjochen@hotmail.com if it's not to big.
thanks anyway
rgds

 

I have emailed you the bios. Let us know if it worked for you. I am not confident that it is a bios issue, but it shouldn't hurt. Have a PCI graphics card at the ready just in case. Good luck!

 

Thanks, but after cheking with raedit, I think both bioses, yours and mine are identical. But what the heck I will start to perform update later today.
Just hope everything goes right, cause I don't have PCI ir ISA card.
thanks anyway.
rgds

 

sorry for extra reply but i'm not going to update bios on threath 13, no way.

 

Probably there's no need, since BIOSes are identical (date and everything)... problem must be somewhere else then.

 

again, try the numbered steps I posted above!

 

1jcop1 you are talking about two separate issues here.

The double monitor thing, forget about it. It's a glitch in the hercules card bios but it does NOT have anything to do with the fact that your tv out is not working.

The TV out problem, well assuming the card is not faulty you make sure to use the cable that came with the card.
How do you connect the TV? s-video->scart?
Do you have any adapter in between?

 

Calinerti, nope, didn't solve it, probably cause both bioses, yours and mine are the same. even file size.



Shuki, nope also, I'm going nuts here, i'm just thinking that people at Hercules Belgium are ......,
think about it, in the US when you buy something you can always return it, here, nope, called tech
support again, no can do, they even don't want to have the card to test it, that's really strange don't you think, Me the customer buys a product for 115Euro and have to make it work, thats like buying a car and then have to repair the engine yourself.
Can't understand this company, whenever I sell something to a customer and he/she has a problem with it I try to help them asap, or in the worst case exchange/refund. But then again I'm not a million dollar company so what's 1 person whith a problem.

At this moment, just unplugged my card, and put in my old MX420, no issues here now.

If some of you find a solution in the future I would glad to hear cause the way i'm thinking is that I spended my 115 Euro better to a decent Videocard training and make my own

Again to all of you thanks for all the input.

btw something i'm thinking about, I read somewhere that the card needs 75ohm for receiving signal, now concering my TV and VCR doc the output is 75ohm, but still the cable is 5/6 meters can it be that it loses
some and lets say for eg the card only receives 74ohm signal.

rgds and thanks
see u later

 

Peroni I have the cable from Hercules attached to the TV, no scart, but tried it also with scart

 

Guess it's just a defective card then.
Yes, the way tv-out works is that when it senses a ~75ohm load on the s-video port it then allows you to enable the TV-OUT in the drivers.
Not really the brightest way imho since it causes way too many problems when hooking up vcr's or any other kind of adapter.
Return it if you can or contact hercules europe to have it replaced.

 

1 issue at a time here:

Right click 'My Computer' then left click > 'Properties' > 'Device Manager' > 'Monitors' > highlight 'Default Monitor' > 'Properties' > under 'Device usage' check the 'Disable in this hardware profile' & uncheck 'Exists in all hardware profiles' > 'OK' & close it.

Open 'Display Properties' > 'Settings' : Click on the 2nd monitor > uncheck 'Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor' > 'Apply'. Open 'Advanced': 'Displays' > the upper left hand corner of the 2nd monitor *should* be red ... if it isn't > click on it & turn it off so it is red. Whatever warning window you might get: disable the monitor anyway. 'Apply'

Now shut down thru 'Start' & re-boot to Windows. Check those 'Display Properties' settings. The 2nd monitor *should* be disabled still. It'll still show up tho', because it is the 'Safe Mode' display @ 640x480 res. It won't be 'active' in your present Windows enviroment anymore tho'. (You can clean it out of the registry, but Windows will reinstall it for 'Safe Mode' VGA operation again.)

Try that & then the TV out issue *might* be easier to address. I haven't tried TV out on my Sapphire 8500LE, but want to.

If you don't have a PCI card, type this at the corrupted DOS screen > C:\atiflash -u -f 0 backup.rom & that'll flash the backup you created by typing C:\atiflash -s 0 backup.rom before the bad flash. Use the appropriate driver letter naturally. You'll need to type 'Y' after you hit 'enter', for the backup flash, or it won't flash > the -f is a 'force' command & DOS asks if you are sure you want to 'force' the flash. 'Y' is yes.

HTH,

 

Jav - my understanding is that in device mgr, only one monitor is shown. That is his real monitor. Only place the "ghost" default one shows is in the ATI control panel....

 

Yes that's right. I have the same Hercules card as RIV@NVX and we all have the ghost monitor even if nothing is attached to the DVI port. Only one monitor showing in Device manager.




Not a big deal, it does not cause any issue and it is not related to tv-out.
Does it happen on non Hercules cards too?

 

I'm pretty sure this is a driver issue...

It never happened to me until I installed the 3.1 or 3.2 drivers.

 

Hello again,

followed your instructions, but as stated before default monitor is only showing in ATI panel. But I stopped thinking about that.
BTW, have I already told you that my old gforce has the same amount as fps in FS2002 pro as the radeon which has 128MB ram (gforce only64). But this aside, feel like the guy from fanta "been there, done that":duh:

Concerning drivers I started this morning again with clean machine, and the oldest drivers I could find 2.4.
Well gentleman and ladies, a big nope, altough I taught that my tv flikkered for a moment.
So now back to where I started.
If any of you knows something more?
rgds

 

absolutely positively has to be a GPU card itself issue then. Maybe you can try different BIOS' for it (but that in itself is risky ya know...) Omegadrive.com has some BIOS' up I think but again, try at your own risk brotha. Really too bad your retailer or Hercules themselves won't take care of this!!!