G400 with LX motherboard

[joelau]

Is anybody using G400 with a LX chipset motherboard ?
I'm using a Rhino II LX and it's very unstable. Tried changing to latest drivers 5.52 and also tried 5.30 but did not help.
Graphics can get corrupted and lock up the system anytime anywhere, even when i'm typing this message.
Regards.

[Kruzin]

Many LX mobos have problems with newer AGP cards (not just the G400). They just can't supply the current needed for proper operation. Time to upgrade...

[Livius]

Kruzin's right. LX boards are extremely unstable with AGP cards (more unstable than VIA mobos even). I recommend forcing AGP to 1x but I am not sure that is of much help. It happens that I tried to build a system based upon an LX board (a newer PPGA one) a short while ago and I have tried TNT/2, Savage 4 and a G400. None worked properly. I settled for a Voodoo3 and that's probably the only recent AGP card that works in there.

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Coppermine 500 FC-PGA (under overcloking tests)
Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X (133A); 128MB SDRAM; G400 16MB SH; Vortex2; WD Expert 20GB

[Livius]

Kruzin's right. LX boards are extremely unstable with AGP cards (more unstable than VIA mobos even). I recommend forcing AGP to 1x but I am not sure that is of much help. It happens that I tried to build a system based upon an LX board (a newer PPGA one) a short while ago and I have tried TNT/2, Savage 4 and a G400. None worked properly. I settled for a Voodoo3 and that's probably the only recent AGP card that works in there.

------------------
Coppermine 500 FC-PGA (under overcloking tests)
Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X (133A); 128MB SDRAM; G400 16MB SH; Vortex2; WD Expert 20GB

[joelau]

After a complete check, i suffer from sblive IRQ sharing with G400 as well. So i went on to read all previous threads regarding sblive & G400 problems and rearrange PCI cards to make sure that nobody is sharing IRQ with G400. Then i went on to force AGP 1x mode (AGPFlags="0").
Too bad after a night of work i still get display corruption and lock up,
UNTIL i disable bus mastering. Then it works fine.

Now i'm unsure it's a problem with my LX motherboard or with sblive ?

BTW, does anybody knows the meaning of this key AGPFallback="0"

Regards.

[Kruzin]

Disabling busmastering cripples the card, thus reducing it's power requirements. It may be running, but it's running dog slow.
Again, it's that LX chipset.

[joelau]

Thanks for the reply.
I have more info. In a fit of anger i took out sblive and enable bus master on G400.
It works fine, after 2 hrs of use still doesn't hang. Techdemo is working fine too.
There's really a lot of difference in techdemo with bus master enabled.

Any idea why taking out sblive will enable G400 to run with bus master ?

And i'm also thinking of changing to a Asus P3C2000 motherboard.

Regards.

[Ali]

Ive had a G400 running in a LX board fine. It was an ASUS P2L97-DS. this board had a 'stepper' voltage regulator problem, and I had to solder a wire on it. I would send you the URL of the fix, but thats on my home machine, and Im at work.

From memory it had something about the linear voltage regulators on LX boards not supplying the correct current for heavy duty 3D.

I think (Im quite sure in fact) that later LX boards fixed this problem, as its not the chipset itsself, but the reference design from Intel that was at fault.

Anyway, good luck, and Im pretty sure you can get it to work.

Also, have you tried the lattest PXII drivers? If you are running 95, or 98 (not SE) then you have outdated ones. Look on your mobos web site to get the new ones.

Ali

[Ees]

Errr,

I have a G400 in an LX mobo (Abit LX6).

I expected to have major problems, and considered getting a new mobo before installing it, but I figured I'd just try. And, much to my surprise: no soldering, no crashes, no problem.

It's only been in there for a couple of days, but I did do some stress-testing. Even overclocking my Celeron 400 to 6*75 does not seem to cause any problems. And no, the board does not have AGP-divider settings, so the AGP-bus is running over spec. I'll see how it handles a few hours of 3DMark later on (unless someone can suggest a better burn-in tester).

Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe it'll crash-n-burn in the next few days. In the meantime: yes, it's possible.

Martin
(Fingers crossed)

[joelau]

Thanks for all the replies.
Anyway i gave up and will use without bus master until this board EOL.
Regards.