Need Help disabling onboard graphics on Biostar P4M900

[belikethat]

wow socket 478 with 8800gt? mine only geforce4 xD
anyway
could try ur card on other PC
than u know for sure if it;s ur graphic or not

[ROLFWOLY]

Originally Posted by Adrian Wong

To restore the old BIOS, you will need to boot up with a DOS boot disk.

Can you tell me specifically how to restore my bios? I can't find any updates for my motherboard older than the one I installed from Biostar.com. The site has one listed that is older, but when I click to download it the link doesn't come up.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by ROLFWOLY

Can you tell me specifically how to restore my bios? I can't find any updates for my motherboard older than the one I installed from Biostar.com. The site has one listed that is older, but when I click to download it the link doesn't come up.

Unfortunately, that differs from motherboard to motherboard. You have to check with Biostar what works with your motherboard.

But if you cannot boot up with it... you may need to hot flash it. We have a guide here - Tech ARP - Hot Flashing Guide Rev. 2.0

[virodust]

I cant remember exactly where i read this but I was intrested in this MB too and was browsing for reviews as my 3.0E prescott is still fast enough to do what i need but I wanted a PCIe card. I read somewhere that this MB only works with video cards 8600 and lower.

[virodust]

I just found another forum where someone else was experiencing a similar problem as you. It can be found here.
333.tomshardware.com/forum/247676-33-8800-failing-pass-power-self-test-process
[rename 333 to www]
Its too bad, I dont think I'll be buying this MB afterall, ive only read good reviews on it too.

[The_YongGrand]

Originally Posted by virodust

I just found another forum where someone else was experiencing a similar problem as you. It can be found here.
333.tomshardware.com/forum/247676-33-8800-failing-pass-power-self-test-process
[rename 333 to www]
Its too bad, I dont think I'll be buying this MB afterall, ive only read good reviews on it too.

Hi there,

The Biostar P4M900 is a value-based VIA chipset-based board, geared towards casual home net-surfers and office computers as electronic typewriters (I mean casual office work), or an extremely simple HTPC.

Gaming and heavy work will not be fully optimized on that board because it has a lot of limitations - the electrical problem of PCI-E which causes it to be only 4x instead of 16x, and various bottlenecks because of outdated and old memory controllers and stuff like that.

If I'm not mistaken, a VIA P4M900 chipset still uses some old technology, borrowed from the P4M8xx, except they add something new to it like the Gigabit LAN, PCI-E, or even newer processor support. The rest of them still have DDR1 (certain VIA-chipset based boards have Hybrid DDR1/2 and Hybrid AGP/PCIE16x) and AGP capabilities eventhough they have moved to DDR2 and PCIE already.

Hope that helps.

edit: Again, the MB could be a good choice for casual home net-surfers, and simplest office work. For gaming though, I could have recommended a dirt-cheap Intel 945 chipset boards which are now trying to be ended up into bargain bins. Hell, I can even do Matlab, or Multisim, or even compile C++ programs inside ANY of the value-based motherboards too!