need a little help with my G400max & VIA133 Chipset please!

[Tummy]

Hi everyone! I was hoping somebodoy could maybe give me a quick hand with a problem I'm having with my G400max & VIA 133 system (AOpen AX63Pro).

Let's see..where to start. I guess the problem I appear to be having now is that I can't seem to consistently run 3d apps, they just tend to kick me out after a few minutes. Quake 3 will not run at all (locks up right at the beginning) and things like 3dmark2000 just boot me out. I'm running Powerdesk 5.41 (i tried 5.5 as well) and the system is running at 155fsb, agp/2 -> 78. I've clocked the RAM to fsb, also tried fsb-33. It doesn't seem to be the system since every other application runs fine. I ran Prime 95 for several hours with no problems, yet 3d apps within 1-2 minutes just exit back to the desktop. agp 2x is enabled, and I tried both with and without the VIA 3.59 AGP drivers in both turbo and normal mode (both seem to do the same thing). I noticed that 3dmark2000 would at least run a couple of times withOUT the VIA 3.59 driver installed, but then the machine would blue screen after exiting (which i understand is normal without the 3.59 driver). OS is Windows '98 Second Edition.

I thought that maybe it was the TurboGL driver for Quake 3 (i haven't had a chance to try without it yet) but that wouldn't answer my 3dmark2000 problem. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks guys.

[OleJuul]

Seem like the problem is the AGP-speed. Try to clock fsb down and see if 3d works. If it does, it must be that your g400 cannot handle 78 mhz...

[Compton]

I got the same mobo and the exact same thing happens to me on my Celeron 400 when I o/c it to 600. I have to up the voltage up to 2.2 just to get there, and it works great BUT I get booted out of all 3d games. It's really wierd cus I can run SETI for hours w/o a problem but just trying to launch quake3 boots me back to the desktop. And... I'm using a G200 PCI, so it doesn't seem to be an AGP problem. And yes I'm using PC100 ram. I'd just suggest dropping your speed a bit, or maybe upping the voltage. Btw, what the hell are you overclocking? A coppermine 550 at 850?

[This message has been edited by Compton (edited 27 January 2000).]

[Compton]

If you are using a coppermine make sure your bios is 1.12 and also check your lot number on your board with the recommended lot numbers on aopen's site.

[Tummy]

Hi guys. Thanks for trying to help out. First of all, the card is definitely good at 78. I had it running in my BX6-r2 at 129fsb before I got my AX63Pro. The BIOS is definitely 1.12 but i haven't checked the lot #'s.

Compton, sorry - the CPU is a 500E coppermine at 775@1.8V - I tried running slower then that and a lot of the other bus speeds at cause my windows to endless loop registry errors. I'm going to try to go home early tonight to run the thing at basic 500 and see what happens...although I have a suspicion the same thing will be there.

When i first got it (tuesday) i ran it at 770 and reinstalled windows and i sweaar everything seemed great. Then I started installing stuff and tweaking stuff last night and the problem showed up - not sure if it was something i did or just didn't see it on tuesday. I could try reinstalling windows again from scratch to see what happens, too, but if there are any other suggestions i'd still like to try 'em. Thanks!

[Tummy]

Cool! I figured out part of this. Check this out - i changed my network card from the D-Link 530TXE to an Intel 10/100 and 3dmark2000 runs like a charm now! I don't understand it - the only thing I can think of is that there was a bus mastering conflict of some kind. Very odd.

The only remaining problem now is that Quake 3 won't work with the Turbo GL driver. haven't figured this one out yet.

[Compton]

Glad to hear that you're making progress on it. A lot of ppl were saying that the opengl in the 5.5 drivers is just as fast as the turbogl, so maybe you want to give them a try. But if you do run into problemswith 5.5, keep the g400icd.dll file, and then go back to 5.41 or 5.30 and you'll still have fast opengl.

[Dyre]

Very nice. Make sure you dotn have dualhead on with the TurboGL drivers, Q3 doesnt like it. If your playing @ 1024 or higher i would sugjest just droping the TurboGL. Its not much faster at anything higher than 800x600. I dont even have the TurboGL installed anymore. Not worth it...

BTW how do you like the board? i want to get the 1/2 divider for fsb 133 so i can run my 450@600... Does this seam reasonable to you?

------------------
PIII 450 @ 504
generic BX motherboard
G400 MAX : )
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 33
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 66
Creative 36x CD-ROM
HP 2x2x6x CD-RW
64 megs PC100 RAM
128 megs PC133 ECC RAM
NetGear 10/100
Soundblaster 32 AWE
Diamond SupraExpress 56k
Logitech Wireless Desktop (best $50 ive ever spent)
1 92mm Sunon Fan
4 80mm Sunon Fan's

[Tummy]

Thanks, Compton. I will give the 5.5 drivers a whirl once they are non-beta. Something about working with a Beta in this sort of state of things worries me. =)

Dyre, as for the motherboard...I think it's okay, only. Seems to have some problems running at certain bus speeds. I've heard it's just a combination of what hardware you happen to have, and I guess I have it. For me, 150, 148, 144, 133, 124, etc. result in Windows endlessly looping claiming registry errors. But 155 boots flawlessly every time. Something odd going on there. But for features, it's good - i mean, it's got the agp/2 and memclock-33 if you only have pc100 that isn't stable at 133. I can't complain with it too much. Although every now and then on my machine explorer will crash - nothing else does, just explorer. Not sure if this is related to anything.

[Compton]

Did you check your motherboard's lot number?
Mine is 47

Certain lot numbers are recommened:
AX63 Pro 98, 53, 52, 90, 36, 17, 47
To determine the lot number of your board, find the white sticker that reads "55.XXXXX.XXXKN(or JN or KH, etc)XX". The last two digits represent its lot number.

http://english.aopen.com/tech/report/cpuref/p2cpu.htm

[Tummy]

Compton - yes, i checked my lot #. Mine is also 47. Odd that it runs at 155*5 but not slower. I upgraded all my window stuff and explorer hasn't crashed on me yet.

Not like explorer doesn't crash on my 200 times a day on my work computer anyway (which is not overclocked!) Thanks for all the help guys!

[Tummy]

damnit. i spoke too soon. 3d apps still do funky things on my system. although i'm not convinced it's the graphics card. I'm getting a new mobo soon (going to try the TYan 400)