ATI Ultra Pro Video Card May Not Work with 8514 Driver

• Microsoft Windows operating system versions 3.1, 3.11

SYMPTOMS

When you set up Windows with an ATI Ultra Pro video board, Setup may automatically detect the video board as an 8514 adapter. Setup may stop responding (hang) when it actually starts Windows (a gray screen is displayed at this point) if the board is set up incorrectly.

CAUSE

According to ATI Technologies, the ATI Ultra Pro video card, which uses the Mach 32 chip set, is fully compatible with the IBM 8514 adapter and should work with the Windows 8514 video driver if set up properly.

Windows hangs if the video card is set up incorrectly. When you set up the Mach 32 board with the installation program, you use the Set Power-Up Configuration option. In the Set Power-Up Configuration dialog box, you set the VGA Memory Size option. This option tells the card how much memory to dedicate for the VGA portion of the adapter.

According to ATI Technical Support, it is a common mistake to set up this option to use all the memory on the adapter. Doing so causes Windows to hang if you are using an 8514 driver. This option should be set to half the total memory on the board (which is usually 512 kilobytes [K] because most Mach 32 boards come with 1 megabyte [MB] of VRAM. The configuration can also be set to "Shared," which allows VGA and 8514 programs to share the VRAM on the card; however, this setting may not always correct the problem. Specifying the amount of memory is the most reliable way to ensure Windows does not hang.

The ATI Ultra Pro is manufactured by ATI Technologies, Inc., a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this products' performance or reliability.