Intel Pentium Pro server system circa 1996-97

I have an Intel server with Pentium Pro 200 which, I think, dates from 1996 or 7. It uses SCSI (AHA 2940) on a riser board with PCI and ISA slots which are now empty. It still has Win 98SE. I acquired it in the day, used and ridiculously inexpensive, to run games for my son. I don't remember how I did it, but I had it running Half Life and House of the Dead for him. It has been collecting dust since 1999 or Y2K. I got the idea now to run old games on it just for myself. I have fond memories of installing sound and video cards in it and playing those games along with him. I don't remember how or when, but the sound and video cards are gone. I just went on eBay and bought this: "ATI Radeon 7500 64MB PCI Video Graphics Card DDR 64-bit DVI /VGA /S-Video." It seemed like it would work with this system, but I confess, it was a stab in the dark. It said VGA and "compatible with WIN 98," so I went with it. The system starts only enough to display the name of the card on the screen and stops and stays right there. No booting up. No BIOS. What did I miss? Anyways, how can I know the limit or specs for a video card that will work with my vintage of motherboard/CPU? What do I look for/avoid? I already upgraded to Direcx 8.1, by the way. Thanks for the guidance! I'm new here, and I apologize if I've chosen the wrong forum for this.

Hi welcome to VCF. Pics and model no. of the machine you are using would be handy.

I'm a little confused. You say you can't get past POST with the video card installed (by the way, it's a compatible card) but you were able to update to DirectX 8.1 and run windows 98?
Also yeah, photographs would be nice.

A quick check shows that the Radeon 7500 drivers require at least a Pentium II.

An other item to check is to make sure any motherboard supplied video is turned off.

NeXT said:

I'm a little confused. You say you can't get past POST with the video card installed (by the way, it's a compatible card) but you were able to update to DirectX 8.1 and run windows 98?
Also yeah, photographs would be nice.

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The motherboard has Crystal sound and S3 Virge video chip(s) (2 MB) on it, so it runs decently as-is, and I updated the directx to 8.1. I've been using it, but the graphics performance is poor so I'm trying to add a card to a PCI slot.

the computer never did have any external identifying badge or label on it. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. thanks.

krebizfan said:

A quick check shows that the Radeon 7500 drivers require at least a Pentium II.

An other item to check is to make sure any motherboard supplied video is turned off.

Click to expand...

So I'm out of luck with my pentium pro 200. I'll look into the bios to turn of the onboard s3 virge chipset. thanks

Caluser2000 said:

Hi welcome to VCF. Pics and model no. of the machine you are using would be handy.

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Where is the model number to be found inside the box? There are numbers on everything all over the inside.

The video card should work fine, I've used a GeForce FX5200 in a 486 so I see no reason why a Radeon 7500 wouldn't work in a PPro.

I would try using a different slot, and if that doesn't work try the card in another system to make sure it's not a defective card. If it helps any I can test the FX5200 in my tower to tell you if it works and I got mine for $5 at a yardsale, might be luck but such a shitty card for 2003 shouldn't be too expensive now but it'll be more than enough for anything that'll run on a PPro.

I've been replying to your posts, but my replies haven't materialized.

I started on a photo session, and got three pictures taken when the camera battery died. More, and hopefully, better, to follow:

Here are a few more pictures of the box I'm working on:

A quick check shows that the Radeon 7500 drivers require at least a Pentium II.

Click to expand...

That's such a load of crap. If anything that's just some arbitrary limit set on the installer. The card itself will still work with any PCI based Pentium machine. Bet you with a lot of handywork you can get it working on a PCI based 486 board.

Anyways, yeah, the video card is probably being told by the BIOS that the other video card is present and has priority. There's either a setting in the BIOS to say if you want to initialize onboard or PCI/ISA video first or a jumper that completely disables the onboard video. If there is neither you are out of luck and stuck with the onboard but then I would recommend something like a Voodoo2 for 3D acceleration and I know that Half-Life supports it.

NeXT said:

That's such a load of crap. If anything that's just some arbitrary limit set on the installer. The card itself will still work with any PCI based Pentium machine. Bet you with a lot of handywork you can get it working on a PCI based 486 board.

Anyways, yeah, the video card is probably being told by the BIOS that the other video card is present and has priority. There's either a setting in the BIOS to say if you want to initialize onboard or PCI/ISA video first or a jumper that completely disables the onboard video. If there is neither you are out of luck and stuck with the onboard but then I would recommend something like a Voodoo2 for 3D acceleration and I know that Half-Life supports it.

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Thanks. I'll be trying that soon.

Since I'm still asking about this same PPro200, I'll add to this thread: The motherboard has two IDE connectors, and the ISA / PCI riser on which is the AHA 2940 SCSI board to which is attached by seagate st32171n 2gb hdd. Can I pull out and toss the SCSI setup in favor of the IDE for reasons of cost? I haven't looked into it yet but couldn't I get a much larger capacity hdd on ide for a much lower cost?

Zeugitai said:

Since I'm still asking about this same PPro200, I'll add to this thread: The motherboard has two IDE connectors, and the ISA / PCI riser on which is the AHA 2940 SCSI board to which is attached by seagate st32171n 2gb hdd. Can I pull out and toss the SCSI setup in favor of the IDE for reasons of cost? I haven't looked into it yet but couldn't I get a much larger capacity hdd on ide for a much lower cost?

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Of course you can substitute the scsi drive for IDE if the onboard IDE contrllor is functioning ok. There may wellbe bios updates as well which increase the size of IDE hdd you can use as well.