G400Max and high AGP Speeds

[Betrayer]

Okay I posted this over on ARS forum and thought I'd see if I could get some ideas here as well. Here's the C&P of the entire post:

Well this covers both overclocking and video but I think this is the proper forum for this question. Just wondering if anyone has had trouble with their G400Max at high AGP bus speeds? I have a P3650@866 which puts the AGP bus at 88mhz. Now when the system is clocked this way it seems like all my D3D games lock up, UT, MXM2, Ground Control and others. What happens is the screen becomes scrambled, with random lines of colors running horizontally across the screen. If there is music playing it usually continues playing but will also sometimes loop at the point the screen locked up. Only way to get out of the lock-up is reset from the case. If I drop everything back down to 650/100/66 then I have no problems at all. The reason I suspect that it maybe the high AGP speeds causing the trouble is because the CPU temp with a full load tops out at 38c and all my 2d games work fine. This weekend I'm going to drop my crusty old V3 2000 in and see how it runs but I was just looking to see if anyone else has run into this with their G400. Oops, this happens both under Win2k and Win98SE...System specs:
AOpen HX08 Full Tower Case
PentiumIII650@866 w/GW VOS32
256m Generic PC100 SDRAM(128x2)
Soyo 6BA+IV
IBM 15g ATA66
IBM 20g ATA66
Maxtor 20g ATA66
Wintec(?) 40x CDROM
Plextor 8x4x32 CD-RW
SBLive Value
Matrox G400Max Dualhead
3Com 3C905TX 10/100 NIC
USR Sportster 56k Int. ISA Modem
19" Viewsonic PS790
17" NEC(dunno the model)
CambridgeSW 4 pt. Surround
MS Natural Keyboard Pro PS2/USB
MS Intellimouse Exp. USB
Sidwinder game pad
Sidewinder Precision Pro USB
Sidewinder Precision Racing Wheel
Dual boot Win98SE and Win2kPro

[DuRaNgO[MU]]

try leaving the fsb at 100 and setting agp ratio to 1, if it doesn't crash it's something else
jim

------------------
Abit BE6 with P3 500 @ 5*133=667 and climbing!
14.6 gb Maxtor ata66 and 128mb pc-133 ram
G400 vanilla 32mb @ 168/210
Sblive with Altec Lansing speaker combo
384k DSL and Realtek nic
Windows 98se with DX7a
Worn out reset button :O)

[Stringy]

G400's are generally good at handling high AGP bus frequencies...
If you have the G400 set to AGP2x transfer try lowering to AGP1x with the PD5.xx reg hacks... see if your stability returns

Craig

[Mr D. Ackerot]

I had problems with lockups... since I removed the heat transferring wax and used thermal grease instead I haven't had a lockup! (Running my G400 MAX with a P!!!450@600 on a AOpen AX6BC)

/Daniel

[DuRaNgO[MU]]

also, check under the heatsink attached to the bx chipset, many boards don't have thermal paste applied, saves about .10 for the manufacturer

[Hitmann]

I am running my PIII 450 at 504 and my vanilla G400 is at x2 with no problems which means roughly 75mHz instead oh 66mHz.
I do not get any lock ups.

My 2 cents worth
My G400 is not overclocked with PD 5.41.
HH

[IceStorm]

Remove one of the DIMMs (take it down to one). See if you still have the problem.

Lock the AGP Apeture at 256MB, and try kicking AGP back to 1x.

My Soyo 6BA+ IV would not work with more than one DIMM when the FSB was at 120Mhz, let alone 133. System would freeze or hang after a certain ammount of time.

I don't know if the Soyo's got a jumper to up the I/O voltage. The Asus P3B-F I use does, and seems to be fine with my G400 MAX at 133FSB. It won't go over that reliably, though.

Just my $0.02

[Booker]

I can get G400MAX @ 4xAGP running with PD5.52, However, Very unstable with my P3V4X (VIA) board.

Currently using PD5.30 TGL1.003 2xAGP
(No Problems)

[Rick]

I had my G400 running at 100 2x for about a month. Was using SoftFSB to change the speed on my old P2B. Since that doesn't change the AGP divider from 1/1 to 2/3 I was stuck with the high speed. It was completely stable the whole time. With the new P3V4X board changing the bus speed is so much easier and it sets the speed right, so I'm back down to 67Mhz (turbo setting).

------------------
ASUS P3V4X,Celeron 366@555, 2.25v, 128mb PC133 Crucial RAM, G400 DH, Maxtor 7200rpm 10GB, 4.3GB Fujistu, Creative 24x, Creative X-Gamer, D-Link NIC, ISA Modem

[Betrayer]

Well I think I finally got it. First I took DuRaNgO's advice and put the system back at 100mhz and ran the AGP speed at x1. No problems there so for the most part I ruled the G400 out at that point. So from there I clocked the system back up to 133 fsb ran some tests again, same lockups. dropped the bus to the next lowest speed of 125 and everything ran smoothly. So now I figure it's my 1 stick of pc100. Well because the VOS32 heatsink/fan combo is so big I had my dimms in slots 3 and 4, I took the pc100 stick out of the 3rd slot and booted the system back up at the 133mhz fsb and now there were no lockups. Next I moved the dimms back to the 1 and 2 slots, the hs/fans now rest on top of the ram, everything seems to be fine now. So now I think the ram has something to do with it, but it could have been the 4th dimm slot as well.

[DuRaNgO[MU]]

good work !
jim