bios updated,see's video card but....

I get a kernel panic when booting linux, if I go back to on-board linux boots fine however the screen resolution cant be changed & is way too big to use even on a 17in monitor. Old bios was A00 updated to A02 which has the auto feature for video cards. video card 1 ati all in wonder rage 128 16mb pci still have box. video card 2 matrox millenium II pci pulled out of another machine. 2350 dimension 384 ram 2.0 celeron Both cards boot fine in hp machine that has on-board video as well. Tried several linux distro's in this dell either I get the kernel panic or it just freezes the computer.