Unbuntu Problems w/ vid card

[figarowa]

Hey all, I've been on a 2 week long hair pulling event trying to get unbuntu installed.I'm using an old i830 chipset with celery 1100, 256 Ram. The main problem I am having is the display getting gnome to even load. The board "had" onboard video but is physically unusable-mother in law did not unscrew the dsub connector and tore the whole thing out, so the only option I have as far as spare parts was a s3 trio 64 pci flavor. On regular boot, unbuntu freezes, and the "safe mode" does the same, I've ran the configuration many many times using the S3, virge, vesa and vga modes @ 800x600-24, 16, 8 bit and 640x480. I do have the onboard vid disabled in bios, but I can not recall the errors getting, I can try to post it later if it is needed. Also have researched the wiki and the unbuntu forums and tried all of their suggestions, the only other option I fear is a new mobo or vid card, but I wanted this to be on the cheap. Thx

[faulkner132]

I would recommend posting this question on the Ubuntu Forums if you haven't already. Your problem sounds quite unique, but since there are a lot of experts there, I'm sure someone can help.