VIA 4n1 Drivers FOUND!

[paulcs]

It's important to note that they don't make the board faster than other 133A's. They appear to correct a problem with the Asus board that makes it a lot slower than the other 133A's.

I think there is an assumption that it's the AGP driver correcting the problem. It may not be. Asus hasn't respond to inquiries about this, and I guess we won't find out until they do.

As far as I know, the big difference between the Asus board and others using the 133A chipset is the southbridge. Asus opted to go with the VIA "mobile" southbridge. I'm not sure this has anything to do with the problem.

By the way, I haven't had so many problems installing a board since my first motherboard installation (and that board was defective).

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Wiseguy]

I'm not pissed man...well I was, but like I said, I was having a bad day and miss read your intent. But no apology necessary after the explanation.

The point of posting the 4.17 is that they are hard to find because VIA only had them up a short time but they are readily available from vendors who carry VIA based boards. Some people on various boards have had good luck with them so why not post ‘em… Everything else is out there.

They aren’t magic. On the other hand people have had issues with the new 4.20 and need something to revert back to. 4.17 just happened to be the one people were asking about. So it’s there for whom (or is it for who? Never paid attention in English class) ever wants it.

Anyway man, it’s all good.



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TweakFiles
3DFiles

[anid]

Right, that is kinda what I was getting at - the only drivers written with the Via 133 chipsets in mind (KX or Apollo) were the 4.19 and 4.20 4n1s (AGP driver 3.59 and 4.0). I'm perplexed as to why an older driver, basically written for the MVP3, would even out it's performance and the new one would hurt it. The only other real driver in the set is the BM, and I can't believe it is behind it. Their BM drivers have never had a significant effect on performance, which ever south bridge was used. It seems a safe assumption that it is something in the AGP driver. Anyone willing to try, install just the AGP driver from the 2 different packs using the default MS BM driver and see what difference there is. With SS7 systems there is basically none.

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"I wrestled with reality for 27 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

[Zyn]

I seriously doubt anyone will buy one of these via drivers unless they are dying for something called agp4x or just saying they have a higher clock speed then some bx user.
Going through this is a real pain. I think VIA has a valid product with the 133a, and maybe with a few new patches we might be ok.

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G400 on a G400

[paulcs]

If you think that is weird...

I installed the Asus board yesterday and it wouldn't post in "jumperless" mode. It wouldn't boot in any mode unless I switched all the jumpers to off and put it in "jumper" mode. Then it booted with a 133 MHz FSB and my 600 MHz PIII running at 800 MHz. If I attempted to jumper the FSB down to 100 MHz, I'd get that awful series of long beeps.

A BIOS upgrade enabled jumperless mode, and I was able to clock it down and install Windows. It's a good think my CPU could handle the overclock or I would have been screwed.

Wiseguy, did you design your website? It looks great.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net