G400Max & Asus K7V and I'm still crashing.

[Pennhaven]

I found the same as Rob - that my G400Max/K7V combo is more stable at 3.3VIO than at the factory default of 3.4V.

Now the good news and the bad news... After trashing my legacy sound card, which uses the Aureal Vortex 1 audio chip, which I now understand is incompatible with the VIA KX133, and going back to the onboard sound, and by following a variation of Luka's install procedure (i.e., install Win98SE, install VIA 1.02 INF, 12AW IRQ, 4.03 AGP drivers, install Matrox PowerDesk 5.41, and reinstall the AGP VIA driver) I've been able to achieve *complete* stability with the Matrox Tech Demo at AGP 2X. So finally I have at least achieved a stable system.

However I have not been able to get anything stable at AGP 4X. The Matrox 5.52 or 5.55 (ParaKnowYa's package), which *do* run at AGP 4X, are *not* stable. And I have not been able to force the 5.41 drivers to AGP 4X using registry tweaks suggested by Luka (i.e., WriteCombining 1, AGPFallback 4, AGPFlags -2).

Am I missing anything? Anyone have any other suggestions how I might get this setup stable at AGP 4X?

TIA

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--John

[Rob M.]

I've only got a 2x card here, and I'm counting my lucky stars that I'm stable at 2x. Maybe someone else can help ya..

Rob

[Pennhaven]

Tried the new K7V beta BIOS 1007.01a which has added an "AGP Mode" option (4X or 2X).

Unfortunatelly it doesn't make any difference as far as my ability to run AGP 4X with my AGP 4X capable G400MAX. i.e. Still not stable with 5.55 drivers at 4X. Completely stable with 5.41 drivers at 2X. Still unable to force 4X with 5.41 drivers.

i.e. Nothing good to report re. 1007 BIOS

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--John

[Rob M.]

2x isn't bad, I've only got a 2x card here, and I'm counting my lucky stars that I'm stable at 1x. Maybe someone else can help ya..

Rob
(sigh)

[Lukappaseidue]

Hi Pennhaven, HI all.
try to set your AGP SIze to 32 MB and use the 5.52 PD.
In bios setting set video cache to UC the video shadow mode to disabled.
In mine byte merge is enable (it improves performances).
If u wanna play stable (i play stable with the above configuration) use powerdesk manager, downoloading from matroxuser and set to 2x.
Good luck.
Write me if u wanna know other tricks.


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[chicane]

Hi~

My K7V running off 3.4v. Seemed to B ok. I guessed, the little voltage pump up wont hurt anythings.

I using 1007.01a BIOS too. No issue or gain here. My G400 is locked @APG2x. Anyway, i cant B bothered much..Using VIA GART 4.03 AGP device driver.

Using PD 5.55 driver wif PD 5.41's OpenGLICD.

Overclocked the G400 wif the addition of a FAN i customed fit. Seemed to B cruising along fine.

Using Motherboard monitor 4.16 and a Thermalcouple placed on the G400's heatsink. I getting abt 41 degree celsius on all applications.

Nothing to complain and nothing to boost. System cruising fine..

[Pennhaven]

Well I finally got the G400 Max stable at AGP 4X!

Part of the problem was my own ineptitude.

Here is what happened...I started thinking about Luka's latest advice and began by running the Power Desk 5 Resolution Manager utility to see what all it would do. When I ran it, I was surprised to see that it didn't report any setting for AGPFlags even though I knew I had set it to "-2" in the registry. So I disabled AGPFallback which was checked, set AGPFlags to "-2", closed PD5 Resolution Manager, and opened RegEdit to see what the changes looked like...WTH...no changes to my previous settings! But then I ran WCPUID it said I was running AGP 4X, which I had never seen before with PD 5.41!

After a little thought I realized that the registry changes I had previously been making manually did not change the same Keys that Resolution Manager changed. So I searched the registry and found that the operative Display number was actually 0001 and NOT 0000... which I had been editing all along. (Luka said in his first post to me that it would not necessarily be 0000, but that was the example he used, so that was the one I editted in the registry. DUH!)

Anyway my K7V/G400 Max system is *finally* stable at it's "designed" AGP 4X rating.

[OEMSpecific]
Win98 SE
DirectX 7.0a
VIA 4.22 4-in-1 drivers (except ATAPI) INF 1.02, IRQ 12AW, AGP 4.03
Asus K7V-w/audio - Rev 1.01
BIOS 1007.01a
AMD Athlon 600 MHz CPU (.25u 650 Core)
Alpha P612H35 Dual Fan Cooler
Maximizer GFD (7X @ 1.70VCore X 1.01 FSB)
3.3VIO
Corsair PC133 128MB SDRAM
Nspire 300W PSU
Matrox Millenium G400 MAX 32MB DH - 5.41 Power Desk drivers
IBM Deskstar 34GXP (20.5GB) Ultra-ATA/66
Hitachi 8X DVD ROM
Hewlett Packard 8200i CD-Writer Plus
Diamond SupraMax 56i Voice PCI SUP2570
Netgear FA310TXC PCI 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Adapter

[BIOS Tweaks]
Spread Spectrum: Disabled
AGP Mode: 4X
AGP Fast Write: Disabled
Byte Merge: Enabled
Graphics Aperture: 64MB
Video Memory Cache Mode: USWC
Video ROM BIOS Shadow: Disabled

[Registry Tweaks]
AGPFlags "-2"
AGPFallback "0"

Thanks to everyone for your advice. Now maybe I can spend some time actually *using* this machine, before I start upgrading it (after all it's two months old already).

------------------
--John

[Pennhaven]

I think this may be the definitive update on this topic. After my last post I moved on to the PD 6.0 beta and once again had trouble with AGP 4X. But thanks to a post I saw on K7V.com AGP 4X (and the entire system) is now working flawlessly. All I had to do was reduce my AGP aperture to 32MB, and no more crashes in AGP 4X. Also got a *slight* increase in frame rate (about one FPS) with UT vs. AGP 2X.

Current set-up (now running Thunderbird):

Win98SE
DirectX 7.0a
VIA 4.22 4-in-1 drivers (INF 1.02, IRQ 13AW, AGP 4.03 - all except ATAPI)
Asus K7V-w/audio - Rev 1.01
BIOS 1007.02b
AMD Athlon 750MHz "Thunderbird" Slot-A CPU (900 Core)
Alpha P612H35 Dual Fan Cooler
Maximizer GFD (8.5X) @ 1.70VCore X 105 FSB = 892.5MHz
3.3VIO
Corsair PC133 128MB SDRAM
Nspire 300W PSU
Matrox Millenium G400 MAX 32MB DH (BIOS 1.6, 6.0 Power Desk drivers)
IBM Deskstar 34GXP (20.5GB) Ultra-ATA/66
Hitachi 8X DVD ROM
Hewlett Packard 8200i CD-Writer Plus
Diamond Monster Sound MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2 AU8830 2240 drivers)
Diamond SupraMax 56i Voice PCI SUP2570
Netgear FA310TXC PCI 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Adapter

[BIOS Tweaks]
Spread Spectrum: Disabled
AGP Mode: 4X
AGP Fast Write: Enabled
Byte Merge: Enabled
Graphics Aperture: 32MB
Video Memory Cache Mode: USWC
Video ROM BIOS Shadow: Disabled

[Registry Tweaks]
AGPFlags "-2"
AGPFallback "0"

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--John

[Rob M.]

You got your thunderbird to 895 on a kx133 board? that's the fastest I've ever heard.. is it stable?? Does 9x100 work flat out?

[Pennhaven]

Rob,

Yes, it's very stable at 892MHz, and using only 1.7Vcore. The key to getting it over 800MHz was going to the jumper mode. It would not boot at 800MHz using jumperless.

But no, it still will not boot reliably at 100 x 9 (900MHz), despite a 900 core. At 900 or higher it will often hang right after the PNP BIOS Extension line in the boot process. I have gotten it to boot into Windows at 945MHz a few times, but it is not stable at that setting. All this is with 1.70 & 1.75Vcore. I haven't pushed the voltage any higher, as I don't think it's worth it. The bottle neck in this system, for most applications, is now the G400 Max, not the CPU speed.

I have seen a few people claiming over 900 MHz with T-birds and K7Vs, but they were using higher Vcores.


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--John

[This message has been edited by Pennhaven (edited 26 July 2000).]